


Have a Heart (Because No One Else Will)

by Black_Briar



Series: The Medium [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: (and I'm still not sorry), Bad things happen to Karkat, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, M/M, Meteorstuck, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Quadrant Vacillation, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sober Gamzee Makara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-22 15:25:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14311668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Briar/pseuds/Black_Briar
Summary: With Jack swiftly approaching, things are getting tense between the trolls on the meteor.  And as everyone turns toward the demon on their tail, no one recognizes the true threat until it's come and gone—leaving Karkat a huddled wreck, and forcing Sollux and Kanaya to pick up the pieces.





	1. Karkat: Break

**Author's Note:**

> Well I wanted to post something for 4/13 this year, and...uh...this happened? Geez. I'm not even sure what to say about this. Serious trigger warning, obviously, don't take the tags lightly! Shit gets graphic.
> 
> Enjoy, and look for the other two chapters sometime in the next few weeks or so!

Right from the beginning, Karkat had known that this wasn't going to last forever.

That wasn't a complaint, mind you. The meteor was a shitty place, the trolls on it even shittier, and the only thing that kept Karkat going was the fact that pretty soon the clock would run down and either everyone would die or the humans would manage a miracle from their session and everyone  _wouldn't_  die. Either way, he thought he was ready for it. Hell, dying might even be a  _relief_ at this point.

In fact, he was in the middle of saying as much right now. Loudly. With as many cuss words peppered in as possible.

"…and if you lot of moronic shitbiscuits would take one meager look at the  _massive fucking clock_ counting down to our extinction, then you would see that we have mere  _hours_ until this cataclysmic event occurs that's going to knock us right over our pans and splatter our thinkmatter across the floor—and while I'm more than willing to accept the inevitability of our demise as a race, it's absolutely fucking  _baffling_ to me that you lot aren't more concerned about it!"

He glared pointedly, flipping his gaze from troll to troll, but no one paid him much attention. The others had started going off alone more and more lately, and there were only a few of the twelve remaining members of their race gathered in the main room of the lab. Those that remained weren't exactly interested in his rants anymore. Hadn't been for what felt like sweeps.

"Ampora?" Karkat tried. "What about you? Weren't you the shithead that was always babbling on about the destiny of trollkind, how you and Feferi were going to make sure Alternia changed for the better? What the fuck happened to that?"

Eridan turned his head away from his monitor to shoot him a bored look. "Fuck off, Kar. None of us are interested in hearin' you bitch."

Terezi snickered. "Say it again!"

"Fuck you too, Ter!"

Karkat shoved a palm against his forehead with a groan. "Zahhak? Leijon? Do you give even a  _single_ fuck that we could be about to die?"

Equius didn't even spare him a glance, but Nepeta blinked back at him with wide eyes. "Oh gosh," she sighed, "is it really going to happen so soon?"

"Eight hours," Karkat rumbled. "Fucking  _eight._ Like I said, I don't give a shit. But how can the rest of you just sit there doing  _nothing_ to help yourselves?"

Nepeta cocked her head. "Well, what are we supposed to do about it? The clock's gonna run down either way, Karkitty, and I really don't see anything else we could do to prepare!"

There was a loud snort from the corner.  _"Karkitty."_

"She wasn't talking to you, Captor!"

Sollux rolled his eyes. Turned back to his computer.

"'God," Karkat snarled, "are all of you completely oblivious, or do you really not care? How can you not fucking  _care_ that we're probably all going to die in eight hours? We're placing the fate of our species in the hands of hornless monkeys, and you're all just  _sitting—"_

"If you care so much, why don't you do somefin aboat it?" Eridan snapped. "Go set a trap for Jack, sharpen your flimsy little sickles, do anyfin other than sit here and glub aboat somefin you're doin' nothin' to change!"

Karkat bristled with fury, biting out, " _I_  don't fucking care about dying; I just don't see how you're all so nonchalant about it!"

"What are we supposed to  _do?"_  Terezi asked. "Jack's on his way whether we want him here or not, so why not just wait around for whatever's coming?"

"Do you  _want_ to die? Honestly, of all the half-panned, shit-slurping jackassery you all could have come up with, the idea to sit around and do nothing is so fucking appalling that I can barely force my aspirators to function! If you would just pull your pans out of your asses and think for yourselves, then  _maybe—"_

Karkat broke off with a jolt as something banged loudly in one corner of the room, the hollow sound echoing about like an alarm and rattling his think pan. His eyes snapped to the source of the noise.

"That's it," Sollux snapped, removing his fist from the freshly made dent in the lab wall. "KK, if you want to sit around whining about something you  _obviously_ care a great deal about, then fucking  _fine_ —but I'm going to my room to wait for my death in peace!"

"I told you,  _I_  don't care!" Karkat yelped indignantly. "I'm fucking  _ready_  to die, Captor, it's the rest of you that need to figure out what you're doing!"

"You're as ready to die as I am ready to pail Eridan," Sollux sneered. "You're so scared of death; it's fucking  _pathetic._ "

Karkat growled, a low sound completely devoid of any distinguishable words.  _"Fuck You."_

"Oh, don't worry," was the scathing response. "My pity is only of the fiercest, most platonic kind. Just don't fucking choke on it, because I'm  _sure_  we all know how fucking  _miserable_  things would be without you!"

Karkat stared in stunned fury as Sollux got to his feet, pushed his husktop aside, and stalked out of the room with a huff. The air around him was practically electric with how frustrated he was, enough so that Karkat received a tiny zap as the psionic moved by—but then he was gone, and Karkat was staring after him with wide, surprised eyes, and everyone else was watching with expressions ranging from amused to concerned to indifferent.

Karkat regained his wits quickly after that. "What the fuck are you all looking at?" he shrieked. "Turn the fuck around!"

Most of the trolls present obeyed hastily. Kanaya, though, just watched him sadly. She'd never been one to bend beneath the force of his anger. He had a feeling that if he'd let her, Kanaya would be dragging him towards the horn pile right now. But he had a moirail, a moirail who wasn't Kanaya, and just because he was never around didn't mean that he could participate in pale infidelity.

Damn did he want to, though.

Gamzee hadn't been around much lately. They'd formed a moirallegiance not long after getting onto the meteor, and it had actually been pretty good for a while there until Gamzee vanished completely without a trace. That had been a good while ago, and there hadn't been a sign of the highblood since. Karkat had been on edge since then. Gamzee could have been anywhere doing  _anything,_ and he knew better than anyone else that the juggalo wasn't the laid back character he usually was whenever he was off sopor. If his supply had run out…

"Karkat?"

He jumped, eyes snapping to the figure that was now standing before him.

"Karkat, are you okay?"

He had to force himself to respond. "I'm fucking fantastic, Kanaya.  _Fantastic."_

She tilted her head to one side curiously. "You don't sound fantastic. Are you quite sure that you're all right? If you're not, then you know that you can come to me about anything that may be troubling you. I understand that Gamzee has been gone for quite some time, and while I do not wish to infringe upon whatever pale emotion exists between the two of you, my desire to keep you from self destructing far outweighs the fear I have of coming between you and your moirail."

Karkat's blood pusher lurched momentarily as for just a second he almost considered it. But no, he had no right to confide in Kanaya while Gamzee was still technically his moirail. He had no right.

"Thanks," he said, reaching out a hand and clasping it to Kanaya's arm. "I really fucking appreciate that, Kanaya, you know I do."

Her shoulders slumped. "But you believe that you have an obligation to work things out with Gamzee. I understand."

Karkat winced, but nodded nonetheless. She was exactly right. "Look, I have to go sulk and contemplate the inevitability of our demise. See you around?"

Her expression softened tenfold, and she reached out a hand to press just momentarily against his cheek. He leaned into it without thinking (and dear god, they were in  _public,_ what kind of a display was this?) as she murmured, "Stay safe."

"Yeah." He drew back and turned for the door, brushing off the chillingly pale gesture. He didn't think he could take staying in the same room as his idiotic team for a moment longer. "Thank you. Seriously."

Kanaya offered him a gentle smile. "Of course. If anything happens to you, you should know that it will be my first priority to hunt the perpetrator down and thoroughly eviscerate them."

He gulped. "Right…"

The corners of Kanaya's lips quirked upwards.

Far above, unbeknownst by the two, a pair of indigo eyes narrowed in anger.

 

* * *

 

 

Some time later Karkat stretched out on his sleep slat miserably, one arm slung beneath his head as he tossed a spherical plaything up and down with the other. He had no clue where the others were. Some were probably still in the main room, while others sulked off in their sections of the lab with no sign of reappearing any time soon. The only sign he got that anyone was even with him on the meteor had been a few hours prior, when a loud crash had resonated from somewhere above him. It was probably Sollux messing around with his computers.

Karkat caught the spherical piece of rubber the next time it fell back toward his fingers and placed it on the wooden table beside his sleep slat. He was tired, but falling asleep was forbidden. Anyone who accidentally dozed off would practically be tortured in their sleep.

_If someone would have told me a sweep ago that I'd be stranded on a meteor waiting for a group of four humans to either save us or doom us, unable to sleep for fear or being eviscerated in my dreams, I'd have swallowed my sickles then and there._

He rolled onto his side. There were only a few hours left until the event arrived that would either spell out their end or their salvation, and there was nothing to do but wait. He didn't care, though. He really didn't. If he was going to die, then so be it. His life should have flickered out long ago, after all—what was the difference in him dying now than later?

He jumped suddenly as a pan-splittingly loud noise echoed from somewhere in the lab.

_What the fuck?_  Karkat sat up, throwing his legs over the edge of the sleep slat and eyeing the door to his respiteblock. That hadn't sounded like one of the normal, ear-piercing sounds that often came from the lab. That had sounded like something bigger.

All at once, his throat closed in on itself.  _Is it Jack? Did he find us? Are we going to die before the clock runs down?_  Immediately his think pan was running at top speed, sifting through what could be happening in the main room of the lab. Mostly the possibilities just included a lot of blood and viscera sprayed across the walls, Jack's claws dripping with liquid rainbows, his fangs flashing in the dull light of a place that had never known the warmth of the sun.

_I could stay put,_ he thought, then promptly decided against it. Everyone knew that being found was a matter of staying put, and getting lost was a matter of keeping on the move. Staying in one place would only increase the chances of being found. Even though every troll had their own portion of the lab that was supposedly only accessible through their individually marked portal, Karkat knew that it was a little more complex than that. The lab was built like a maze, and the portals were merely shortcuts to get you around. If Jack was out there and he tried hard enough, he would find his way into Karkat's section of the lab eventually. The only thing for it was to get lost.

…Or he could go confront Jack and try to save what remained of his friends, but he had a feeling that he should just leave everything well enough alone. The countless hours he'd spent twirling his sickles had only made him a marginally decent fighter, and—

Something slammed against the door, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. "KK! KK are you in there?"

Sollux was outside his door. What the fuck.

"KK, I'm serious! There's something going down in the main lab; I  _know_ you heard that noise!"

It took a moment for him to get his voice back. "Sollux?"

There was another thud against the door.  _"Yes,_ KK, it's me! Now open the fucking door!"

He scrambled to the door in a heartbeat. He knew that Sollux could have ripped it off its hinges with his powers, and he did  _not_ want to have to fix it.

"Fucking finally!" Sollux snapped the instant the door swung open. His eyes were wide, sparks of electricity buzzing between his horns, fists clenched at his sides. "I was worried you were still in the main room!"

"Is that where that noise came from?" Karkat asked. "Do you know what happened? Wait—how did you  _find_ me? This is supposed to be my area of the lab!"

Sollux bared his teeth. "You weren't that hard to track down, idiot. All I had to do was wind my way through the corridors until I picked up on the sound of  _stupid."_

"Oh,  _real_ fucking original, fuckass!"

"That's not the point!" Sollux snipped. "Look, KK, something's happened in the main room, and if our friends are hurt then—"

"Then what? Then it's our responsibility to go there and die with them? Is  _that_  what you want?"

Electricity crackled in the dry air. "We can't sit around and do nothing! Isn't that what you were  _just_  fucking complaining about?"

"That was when we still had a chance! If Jack is here, then we're already fucked!"

"God, KK, you're such a fucking hypocrite." Sollux stepped forward, taking up the entirety of the doorway and pressing Karkat back further into his respiteblock. "You sit around and preach to all of  _us_  about doing something to stop Jack, but the instant you have the chance to actually fight you run away like a coward! You're an insufferable weakling, always have been!"

"Careful there," Karkat sneered, "don't you think you're coming on a bit too strong? You wouldn't want to turn into Eridan, running around looking for  _anyone_ to fall into one of his quadrants." It was a terrible joke; the two of them had been blackflirting with each other since they were hatched. It was a miracle they  _hadn't_  fallen into blackrom by now.

Sollux's eyes flashed. "You know what? Fuck you, and fuck this. I'm going to go up to the main room and see if Jack's the one causing all this—and if he  _is,_ then I'll go down fighting before I curl up into a ball and hide like  _you!"_

Karkat sucked in a shocked, indignant breath, ready to hit Sollux with all of his unending hate, but the psionic was already turning his back and storming off down the hall. A part of him wanted to go with him, or do  _something_ that would stop him from leaving. Jack was probably out there, was probably slaughtering them all, because there was nothing on the meteor big enough to have made such a large crash so it  _had_ to have been him. It had to have been. But a larger part of Karkat was a coward, was terrified of blood and terrified of what he might find if he stepped out into the main room. He was terrified, and so he did nothing.

_I can't stay here, though,_ he reminded himself as he stared at Sollux's retreating back.  _Jack will find me eventually if I stay in one place, so I have to keep moving. Keep twisting further and further into the lab. Hell, maybe I'll come across some of the others in their respective areas. Maybe they can help._

He stepped out of his respiteblock and into the hall. His stomach was churning, entire body buzzing with nervousness. He had to go.

He started off down the hall.

 

* * *

 

Sollux crept down the hall leading to the main room on light toes, stance kept wide and loose in preparation for something to come ripping around the corner and charging at him. Karkat had seemed convinced that it was Jack, and Sollux was inclined to believe him. That noise…that growling thud, the shriek of metal tearing…he didn't think even Equius had the strength to cause such a sound. Jack was the only explanation.

He edged his way up to the doorway and flattened himself against the wall next to it.  _Well, I guess it's time for me to die a heroic death. What a disappointment._ Red and blue power sparked at his fingertips. He inched forward until his cheek was pressing against the doorframe.  _Instant death in three…two…one…_

He lunged around the doorway, threw himself into the room, and landed in a fighting stance. Power flooded the room with an electric roar, sparks jumping across the walls and tearing across the blackened computer screens in search of a monster to thrash.

But…Jack wasn't there.

What was there, though, was much more sickening.

Sollux stared in shock at the spray of blood soaking the walls and streaking across the floor. A mesh of colors, ranging from deep blue to mud brown, all of them smeared across every available surface in a crude imitation of an abstract mural. Every color of the rainbow and then some. Nearly gagging at the smell, Sollux picked his way forward.  _Oh god…_

He gingerly stepped around a puddle of pulpy blue mess. If it hadn't been for the horns, he would never have known that it had once been Equius. Not far away was a smear of olive green, Nepeta's body only slightly more intact.

_Definitely Jack,_ he thought, eyes flickering around to find the other bodies as he stepped further into the room. A splatter of jade across the floor led him to Kanaya's form, stretched out and limp, and his blood pusher jolted painfully as he remembered that she probably would have ended up Karkat's moirail once he finally got his shit together and broke up with Gamzee. Eridan wasn't far away, head smashed in. No big loss there. Tavros was beside him in similar condition. Across the room was just one more body; Terezi slumped against a wall with one of her own swords sticking out of her stomach.

He swallowed hard.  _Time to grieve later. For now, I need to find the others and make sure Jack isn't tearing them limb from limb. I can just—_

Something scraped wetly across the floor, and immediately Sollux was facing the source of the noise with glowing eyes, ready to blast the perpetrator into oblivion. But then…

"Sollux?" came a familiar, rasping voice, audibly thick with blood.

He lowered his hands immediately and knelt beside the source of the voice. "TZ? Holy fuck, you're alive?"

She snarled at him shakily. "You think a toothpick this size can put me down for good? I'll be on my feet again in a few minutes."

That obviously wasn't true, but Sollux didn't try to correct her. "TZ, where'd he go?"

She tried to raise a hand, then winced when the movement made a fresh pulse of teal spill from the wound in her stomach. "Ow, fuck!"

"TZ, this is  _important!"_  he snapped. "Where did he go?"

She winced. "I was unconscious, how the hell would I know where he went? He just went crazy, showing up in here and tearing through everyone like we were made of paper! You're lucky you weren't here, otherwise you'd be dead too."

"Went crazy?" Sollux echoed. "What do you mean  _went_  crazy? Jack has always been crazy!"

Terezi blinked. "Jack? Jack isn't here yet, you dumbass! We've got hours before that happens!"

Sollux sat back on his haunches, shocked. "It wasn't Jack? Then who the fuck was it?"

Terezi coughed. Blood dripped down her chin. "Idiot, it's—!"

A low growl reverberated through the room. A low,  _familiar_ growl, and immediately Sollux's every nerve was alight with tension.  _Oh, fuck._

A large hand sealed on the back of his neck, whipping him into the nearest wall before he had the chance to struggle, and his vision went black.

 

* * *

 

Karkat's breath came in short, strained pants as he finally slowed to a halt somewhere deep in the lab, having been trekking along at a swift pace for quite a while. He was trying to move as quickly and quietly as possible to avoid Jack, but it wasn't easy. He hadn't had to run like this for a long time, and he was already feeling the burn in his muscles. Back on Alternia it wouldn't have been a problem—but now, when all he'd been doing for the past few perigees was sitting in the computer room and trolling the humans…

He looked around at his surroundings as he started to shuffle his way forward. From the looks of things, he was in Gamzee's area of the lab now. There were smudges of his weird greasepaint here and there along the walls, and horns were littered all over the ground. He felt like he hadn't seen his moirail in forever. Now, though, with Jack most likely on the loose, there was no better time to find him and pray that they could keep each other safe.

"Gamzee?" Karkat tried, looking around. He didn't dare call too loudly for fear of alerting Jack of his location, but he could still manage to call out in a low stage whisper without putting himself in too much danger. "Gamzee, are you in here?"

There was no response. Karkat shivered.  _Having a moirail around would be real fucking useful right about now, not gonna lie…_

He picked his way further into Gamzee's area of the lab. From a floor above there was a loud clang, and Karkat immediately thought of Sollux. He wondered if he was okay, or if Jack had already taken him out and moved onto the next target.

"Gamzee!" he hissed to distract himself from  _that_  depressing thought, but once again there was no response.

Wait…had that been a honk?

Karkat paused. Cocked his head. Listened.

…Yep. That was definitely a honk.

He picked his way towards the noise. "Gam…zee…?" It was barely more than a whisper. Something felt off here. Why wasn't Gamzee answering him? Why was he just  _honking?_  They hadn't seen each other in forever; Gamzee should be fucking  _begging_ him for forgiveness right now, not lurking around a corner and making weird sounds.

_hOnk._

Karkat jumped. Slowly began to make his way down the hall towards the sound. "Come on, you insufferable fuckass," he growled softly, though there was a slight shake to his voice. He was afraid. "Stop hiding from me and come out!"

_HoNk hOnK hOnk._

"This isn't fucking funny!" He was growing closer now. The sound was becoming more and more clear with every gained inch of ground. "Gamzee—!"

_Honk._

He growled, the sound low and terrified. Something was  _wrong_.

Then he jumped out of his skin and screeched as a familiar voice sounded not an inch from his ear.

"You have  _no_  motherfucking idea how long I've been up and lookin' for you, best friend."

He whipped around, fingers twitching as he suppressed the urge to reach for his sickles. "Gamzee!" he snapped. His eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden mass of rainbow-splattered troll that had just appeared before him. "You fuckass, do you have an idea how  _long—?"_

He paused.  _Wait…rainbow?_

Gamzee smirked, and his teeth glinted with every color of the hemospectrum. " _So_  motherfucking glad to see you, Karbro. I've been all kinds of searchin' for you."

Karkat took a step backwards. "Hey," he choked out, "what…?"

The juggalo tilted his head to one side, eyes glinting. But that wasn't the normal, mirthful gaze he was so used to seeing from his moirail. No…this look was downright  _frightening_.

Once again Karkat's fingers twitched for his sickles, and once again he just barely managed to stop himself. This was his  _moirail._ He could trust him, no matter the uneasy feeling he was getting from the situation.  _He could trust him_. He didn't need to have his weapons out to defend himself from someone that wasn't going to hurt him. All of that blood could be explained. Surely it could be explained.

_Yeah, explained by the fact that he's just made a mess of all your friends._

He shuddered. "Gamzee, what's with the blood?"

Gamzee raised a hand and droplets of blue and olive splashed to the ground. "You mean all this motherfucking  _miraculous_ grubsauce?"

"Y-yeah," he stuttered, then had to take a moment to regain his wits. The more he looked at Gamzee the more he could identify every individual color splattering his body, and it was making him sick. He could see Equius's blue and Nepeta's olive green, Eridan's purple and Tavros's mud brown, and…

_No. No no no no no…_

His eyes fixed onto a splash of jade.  _Kanaya…_

"Well," Gamzee purred, "there's a mighty fine explanation for all this, best friend." He stepped forward once, twice, until Karkat was at eye level with the smear of jade. "Care to hear it?"

"Yes, of course I want to hear it!" he snapped. His fingers were trembling. He hoped Gamzee couldn't see. "And while you're at it, tell me why you left me alone for perigees on end with no sign of return!"

A smirk. "Well then. How about we all up and motherfucking start at the part where I disappeared?"

"That sounds perfect." He took a step back as Gamzee took one forward, and then he was pressed against the wall as his moirail loomed over him.  _I am not afraid of my moirail. I am not afraid of my moirail. I am_ not _afraid of my moirail._

Gamzee pressed closer and closer. "Let me tell you, Karbro, it was all  _kinds_  of difficult stayin' away from you. But there were voices tryin' to get all up in my think pan, voices whispering about taking everyone's heads off and painting a motherfucking  _miraculous_ mural with their blood, and I just motherfucking  _knew_  that if I stuck around I'd end up adding your candy red to the masterpiece."

Karkat deflated just slightly. "That's it? You were afraid of hurting me? Oh my god, you fucking  _idiot—_ "

Gamzee snarled. "Not done yet, best friend. I was real afraid of hurtin' you, yeah, but when the sopor ran out…" He shrugged, and the rippling of his muscles dislodged a few flakes of drying teal blood.

"The sopor ran out?" Karkat whispered.

It had been the wrong thing to say. Gamzee's eyes flashed dangerously, and one hand came slamming down next to Karkat's head with blinding force. The metal crumpled as if it were made of thin plastic. "The motherfucking sopor ran the motherfuck out!" Gamzee roared. "And then the voices, best friend, the voices were all kinds of messed up, and how the fuck was I supposed to react but by going to my motherfucking moirail? Just a few hours ago I got my stealth on in the vents, wantin' to see if you were free to have a motherfucking  _wicked_ jam, and  _what did I motherfucking see?"_

Karkat's stomach twisted with horror. He knew what Gamzee had seen.

"I saw my best palemate showing the most  _wicked motherfucking kind_  of infidelity!"

Gamzee shuffled just a step forward, and Karkat gagged as the stench of blood rolled off of his clothing. All at once, everything clicked. He understood what had happened in the main room of the lab, and he understood what had probably happened to Sollux when he went to investigate.

"What was I supposed to do, best friend?" Gamzee rumbled. "Do nothing and watch my moirail kick all kinds of motherfucking dirt in my face?"

Karkat tried to step away, but his back just mashed further up against the wall. "Nothing happened," he rasped. "Kanaya just wanted to comfort me, that's all, but I didn't let her do anything."

"Is that so?" was the answering sneer. "Because I know what I all up and motherfucking saw, Karbro, and I  _saw_  her touch you, and I  _saw_ you touch her!"

"I patted her on the shoulder," Karkat protested weakly. "And she just brushed my cheek. It was just friendly and platonic, I swear!"

Gamzee leaned even closer. He was pressing against Karkat in multiple places now, one knee brushing his thigh, a forearm ground into his chest, the toe of his boot nudging against the side of his foot. "Is that so?"

"Yeah, it fucking is!" Karkat struggled, but Gamzee's highblood strength meant that he didn't get far. The arm across his chest kept him hopelessly pinned.

"I motherfucking  _saw you lean into it_ , best friend."

His voice died in his throat.

Gamzee sealed a hand around his wrist, digging his claws into the flesh and making Karkat yelp. "Anything to say for yourself?"

"You were gone, you asshole!" Karkat burst out. "You were  _gone_ , Gamzee, gone for perigees, and I was fucking  _hurting!_  What the fuck was I supposed to do, just wither away in your absence? Because I  _tried_  that, dumbass! I tried, and you wound me up so tight that I couldn't take it one moment longer, and  _yes_  I leaned into Kanaya because she was there for me when you  _weren't!_ "

"Well that's just a motherfucking shame," Gamzee rumbled. "Such a motherfucking shame that I just couldn't help splattering her guts all up over the ground."

Karkat snapped his teeth into his tongue to keep from screeching obscenities.

"Someone had to pay, Karbro—you know that, don't you? Someone had to  _pay_. And if the others got all caught up in the crossfire, that's their problem."

"So that's it?" Karkat asked shakily. "You just killed them? How many died because you didn't just come confront me directly?"

Gamzee shrugged. "Dunno, best friend. Don't think there are many left, though. Three, maybe. Four if Solbro isn't dead."

_Oh, fuck…Sollux, you'd better not be dead because of this maniac._ "So you're doing Jack's work for him, is that it?"

Teeth glinted in the dull light. "I'm just lookin' to get some revenge. It's all kinds of clear that us being moirails isn't gonna work out, what with you all up and stabbin' me in the back, so what's a brother to do? Seems to me that there's only one solution."

Gamzee was uncomfortably close now. Karkat's horns knocked into the wall as he tried to take another step back.

"You showed some real awful motherfucking infidelity to me, Karbro. So you know what I'm fixin' to do to you?"

Karkat shuddered as Gamzee's palm brushed down his chest. "What?" he whispered, and for the first time ever he thought that he was really, truly afraid of his moirail.

Gamzee sneered down at him. "I'm going to take one of your quadrants from you, the same way you went and ripped one of mine away from me. That sound fair to you?"

"T-take one of my…?"

The juggalo leaned close until all Karkat could see was red. "You've been all kinds of hateflirtin' with Solbro for sweeps now. If I just go and…" He twisted his wrist around until his palm rested against Karkat's stomach, fingers pointed toward the ground, and paused. He smirked as Karkat jolted in alarm. "I think you'll miss this one the most, don't you?"

"Back off!" Karkat snapped, then whimpered as Gamzee slid his hand a centimeter lower. "You taking advantage of me doesn't mean I'll take you as a kismesis, fuckass! If anything I'll just want to  _seriously_ fucking kill you!"

"I don't really care what you motherfucking think of me," Gamzee purred, leaning in closer to brush his nose along Karkat's jawline. "What matters is how Solbro goes about gettin' his think on about what's about to go down."

Karkat winced. Gamzee was right—if he wanted to wreck any chance of a black relationship with Sollux, all he had to do was, well… _this._ Sollux would be disgusted. Anyone that had their moirail go black on them was immediately labeled as dysfunctional in Alternian society; no one would want to touch him after this.

"Wish I could say I was sorry about this," Gamzee breathed. "But there are all kinds of black emotions flowin' up in my pan, and taking them out on you is the  _only_  motherfucking way I'll be rid of them." His hand slid lower, then lower still, until the highblood's fingertips were poking just past the hem of his pants.

"Gamzee!" Karkat yelped in alarm. He thrashed, muscles straining under cool fingers, but a low, warning growl and teeth grazing his throat told him that moving was a mistake. "Fuck, what the fuck are you doing?"

"What I said I was gonna up and do, brother." Fingers slid further into his waistband. "You got a problem?"

"Fuck you!"

Gamzee rumbled out a laugh, chuckling, "We've got  _plenty_  of motherfucking time, Karbro. Let's take things slow."

Karkat stared in horror as his moirail pressed against the length of his body, the highblood's hand trapped between their stomachs. His blood pusher lurched.

_This isn't happening._

A cool thigh wedged up between his legs.

_This isn't happening._

Gamzee's free hand hooked around his wrists and dragged them up above his head, pinning them to the wall.

_It can't be._

A set of jagged teeth scraped across his throat, not hard enough to break the skin but hard enough to provide warning.

_You're my moirail! You're not supposed to do this to me!_

"You're stiff," Gamzee murmured. "Don't tell me you don't feel  _safe_  with me, best friend!" Claws sank into his wrists to emphasize his words, a deadly gleam in his eyes. "Come on, brother, I want you to feel all  _kinds_  of motherfucking secure up in here."

It was a joke. It was a joke and he knew it. But still…Gamzee was still acting relatively calm, was still talking in that halting, relaxed way of his. Maybe he could be reached. Maybe Karkat could manage to comfort him and keep him in check before he did something he'd regret.

_If I can't manage that, then…_

He hissed as Gamzee's teeth sank slowly, deliberately into his shoulder, pricking the skin and letting out a gradual dribble of candy red. He was still testing the waters. He wasn't too aggressive just yet.  _He could still be stopped._

Karkat took a deep breath. Forced himself to choke back his rising panic. "Gamzee," he soothed in a soft tone. " _Gamzee_. For fuck's sake, stop tearing my shoulder to ribbons and  _look_  at me."

The highblood didn't even flinch.

"Come on," he whispered, "I can help you, you complete idiot. Let my hands down and I can make all this go away." He gave a gentle tug of his wrists, making sure not to pull too hard just in case Gamzee took it as a sign of aggression.

"Not a chance, brother." Gamzee squeezed his wrists tighter. "If I go lettin' you down, you're just gonna go right for my face—and we can't be havin' that, can we?"

"Gamzee, let me  _go!"_  he insisted, more urgently this time. "You're my moirail; you shouldn't be doing this!"

"Your moirail?" Gamzee echoed hauntingly. "Well, isn't that just the cutest motherfucking thing I've gotten up around my pan! Last time I checked, Karbro, it seemed like you were runnin' all up to join that little jade bitch."

Karkat tugged at his wrists.  _Hard_. "I'm still your moirail! You're supposed to trust me when I say that nothing happened!"

"Been over this, motherfucker. I  _saw_  you."

"Fuck you, you don't know what you saw!" Another tug.

"That so?"

"Yes, it fucking is! Now let me the fuck go, you useless excuse for a— _hey_ ,  _cut that out!"_

Gamzee just smirked at him and did it again, pulling his fingers away from Karkat's waistband and returning them to the outside of his pants, tracing along the shape of his sheathe through the fabric. Light. Teasing.

"Gamz—!" He trailed off in a low, sickened groan as the asshole did it  _again,_ getting a good feel of his lower half as if it wasn't his  _moirail_ he was touching. "F-fuck off!"

"Aww, but I'm  _all_  up and enjoyin' myself right now, best friend—you sure you wanna stop?"

_"Yes, fuck you!"_

Gamzee chuckled. "Now you're gettin' it. Go ahead and put up all  _sorts_ of fights, motherfucker; it's just gonna make it better."

"I'm your moirail, you sick fuck!" he tried again.

Gamzee paused. Considered. "Nah."

"Nah?  _Nah?_ What the fuck do you mean,  _nah?_  Gamzee, I swear to fucking god I will  _end_  you!"

The troll groaned, pleased, knee pressing further up to help his hand's exploration. "I'd like to see you up and try."

Karkat struggled. He fought and thrashed, wrenching at his wrists, kicking his legs out, only to be reduced to a gasping, choking mess the instant Gamzee flattened a palm to his abdomen and slid  _down,_ still over the fabric but forceful enough to send tiny shivers of disgusted pleasure right up his spine. A nudge from Gamzee's knee had him held slightly off the ground, unbalanced and unable to do much more than teeter and squawk indignantly as his moirail— _former_ moirail, fuck him—did things that would have gotten him culled in a heartbeat if Karkat could reach his sickles. Teeth snapped into the inside of his cheek to prevent the tiny chirrs and clicks bubbling their way to the surface.

Gamzee's expression disgusted him. His cheeks were starting to flush indigo, eyes half-lidded and glazed with (and here he gulped, not quite ready to admit it)  _lust_.

_Can't give up,_ he reminded himself.  _Have to placate him before he does anything drastic. Have to get help, or push him away, or free my wrists or…or just do_ all _of that._  But thrashing was getting him nowhere, and Gamzee's fingers had just settled directly over his nook and had started massaging him through his pants, and a jolt of heat hit him so hard it made him nauseous. This whole  _situation_  made him nauseous.

Gamzee must have seen his features twist with conflict, because the next moment he was murmuring, "Feel good, brother?" He punctuated the words by sliding his palm up over his grubscars, and  _yes,_ it did, but it was also making him want to throw up everything he'd eaten in the past sweep. His think pan was still classifying Gamzee as his moirail, and moirails were  _not_  supposed to do things like this.

_…Oh._ Gamzee's fingers were back over his sheathe. Gamzee's fingers were massaging him slowly, torturously, hitting all kinds of sweet spots and coaxing his bulge out. Gamzee's fingers were dipping down and pressing lightly over his nook, rubbing in light circular motions.

_It's not that bad,_ a part of Karkat's think pan tried to tell him.  _Just let him have his way and be done with it._

No.  _No_. That wasn't right. He was his own troll, and he'd told Gamzee to  _get off._

Disgusted, Karkat jostled his wrists lightly. Gamzee's hold had loosened with his momentary lack of resistance, and now his grip was loose enough that maybe, just  _maybe,_ Karkat could get free if he tried.

_And then what? Just run? Just try to hide from him and then Jack once he arrives? Just give up and die?_

Cool air on his stomach brought him back to reality. Gamzee had pushed his shirt up and was tracing his claws lightly across the gray skin. His grip on his wrists had loosened just a tad more.

_There will be plenty of time to worry about all that later,_ Karkat decided.  _For now, I'm getting myself right the fuck out of his grasp._

"There we go," Gamzee was saying, even as Karkat's entire body coiled in preparation to strike. "See? Told you it would—"

Karkat didn't let him finish. Instead he tensed every muscle in his body and  _heaved._

The reaction was instantaneous. Gamzee hadn't been expecting the renewed resistance, and he yelped in alarm as Karkat tore his wrists out of his grasp and threw him to the ground, ending up on top of him with his sickles poised to strike. The point of the blade hooked underneath his chin warningly.

"Don't move, fuckass." His voice only shook slightly. "I can fix this."

Gamzee blinked. Frowned. Then realized what had happened, and began to glare viciously. "Karbro, let me up."

"Not until I calm you down!"

"Karkat."

Oh,  _shit._ He'd used his full name. "I can fix this," he repeated, and this time his voice was shaking  _a lot._ Gamzee terrified him. Like this, he terrified him.

"Let me the motherfuck up."

"No fucking way!"

A low snarl. "Karbro, I'm warning you—"

"Fuck no!" One of his sickles vanished back to his sylladex, and he brought the palm of his hand up to press against Gamzee's cheek. " _Listen_  to me, idiot! You need to calm down. You need to shush.  _Shoosh."_  He patted gently.

And just like that, Gamzee exploded.

Karkat had about one moment to gasp in shock before he was being swept off his feet and brutally taken to the ground, his one remaining sickle flung off to one side, a hand around his throat, a heavy weight settling across his hips. "Gamzee!"

"Shut up shut up shut up  _shut the fuck up!"_

"I can  _help—!"_

"I told you to  _shut up!"_  A blow landed across his cheek with brutalizing force, and Karkat sucked in a stunned breath as he felt the skin split. Gamzee hadn't kept his claws tucked in. "Close that motherfucking mouth of yours, Karbro, or I swear to god I'll motherfucking  _ruin_ you! You have no right to go shooshin' me, brother, not after the motherfucking  _disrespect_ you've all up and shown me!"

Karkat's entire body buzzed with a sense of impending danger. A highblood was furious with him, was growling and snarling and filling the air with airborne biological chemicals that were telling him to  _submit,_ telling him that continuing to struggle was  _dangerous,_ and the presence of those chemicals was beginning to send a tingling sensation down his limbs. Not a pleasant sensation, but one that was starting to turn just the ends of his extremities numb before working its way up to the rest of his body. It wasn't too bad yet; he could still struggle—but as Gamzee leaned low over him and showed his intentions with the murderous glint in his eyes, he wasn't sure how long he'd be permitted to move before the highblood just cracked him over the head with a club and was done with it.

He didn't realize that Gamzee had hooked the claws of one hand into the collar of his shirt until he heard a ripping sound, his symbol rended in two and the spare fabric tossed to one side. Only his torso was exposed, but he suddenly felt naked. In the face of Gamzee's anger he'd almost forgotten the highblood's ultimate purpose in being here—to  _take one of his quadrants._

_Struggle,_ his think pan whispered, and so he did.

Gamzee groaned in surprise as Karkat managed to bring one of his legs up and knee him in the shin at full force. A kick to the knee followed, and sharp wrench of his shoulders  _almost_ managed to throw the highblood off of him.

But Gamzee was strong. Gamzee was strong and fast and his reaction time was almost immediate, and a blow to his stomach took his breath away while the hand grasping his wrists gripped so hard that the bones creaked in protest, and he was so busy screeching in breathless pain that he was unable to do a thing when Gamzee hooked his claws into his waistband and tugged with all his strength.

_Fuck!_  He was too out of breath to say it aloud, though, and all he ended up doing was flailing weakly beneath the controlling grasp of his former moirail.  _Come on, save yourself! Fight! You're no weakling!_

It was true. He was no weakling. What he was, though, was a lowblood—and the sudden surge of pheromones in the air mixed with the threatening growl of a highblood was making him weak in the pan, and when the grip on his wrists suddenly vanished he was too dazed to react in time. Gamzee's hands sealed around his horns and it was over. He hadn't even put up a good fight.

Gamzee chuckled as his victim's struggling came to a halt, thumbs digging into the hornbeds and making sure that moving around too much wasn't going to be much of a possibility. Stimulating the hornbeds always had the effect of a light sedative, filling the troll in question with a gentle dose of subduing endorphins—and though it was by no means enough to render Karkat motionless, it was enough to land him firmly in a daze.

The juggalo bared his teeth in a nasty grin. "I win, motherfucker. Time to own the motherfuck up."

Karkat stared with wide-eyed horror.  _No. This can't be happening to me._

Gamzee didn't even seem to notice how horrified he was. He just continued to the rip he'd started at the top of Karkat's pants and started tugging, tearing his claws through the material and shredding it to pieces, making sure to leave his undergarments intact. Shame flooded through Karkat in a flash of heat. Gamzee knew how much he hated the feeling of being weak and broken down, and was no doubt using it to fucking  _punish_ him by leaving a mocking scrap of his modesty intact.

He had a feeling it wouldn't last long.

Karkat groaned disgustedly as Gamzee's grip tightened on his horns, squeezing once, twice, three times to ensure that he was properly subdued before pulling away and turning his attentions elsewhere. A pair of fingers skirted down his front teasingly. He writhed. Tried to plead, but his voice wasn't working.

Then Gamzee cupped his bulge for a second time, the thing mindlessly attempting to curl around his fingers from beneath the fabric, and Karkat slammed the back of his pan against the ground in hopes of knocking himself out.

"Oh no you motherfucking  _don't,"_ Gamzee snarled. The fingers of one hand wound into his hair and kept his pan still as the hand at his bulge started rubbing in tiny circles. The whole thing wasn't exposed yet, but the highblood's light touch was coaxing it further and further out. "You're going to stay motherfucking conscious for this motherfucking miracle, Karbro, and you're gonna up and feel  _everything_  I decide to do to you." He dug the heel of his palm down on the cloth covering his nook for emphasis, a nasty smirk rising to his lips when he heard the answering chirp. "Understand?"

Karkat refused to respond. He was too busy fighting with his own traitorous body, begging his bulge to slip right back into his sheathe and pleading with his nook to  _stop_ producing the pre-mat he could feel dribbling out to stain his undergarments. He didn't  _want_ this. This made him  _sick._ It made him sick, and it only got worse when Gamzee jabbed two fingers up at his cloth-covered entrance and teased at slitting open the fabric and slipping inside. It continued to get worse as teeth grazed across his throat and scored candy red lines across his skin.

Gamzee didn't kiss him, and he was grateful for that. But when the highblood reached down and slid a single fingertip into the hem of his undergarments, the other still teasing his lower half from atop the fabric, he thought that he'd rather be kissed then violated like  _this_. Gamzee flicked his wrist once, and then he was completely bare.

Instinctively he struggled to curl in on himself and hide the most intimate parts of himself that had just been laid bare. Gamzee wasn't having it, though, a low rumble starting up in his chest.

_"Karbro._ Motherfucking  _stop that!"_ There were hands, then. One at his neck and one at his waist, forcefully unfurling him and stretching him prone beneath his aggressor. "Aww," Gamzee crooned, picking up on his distressed keen. "Don't be gettin' your worry on; I promise it'll be a  _lot_  motherfucking easier if you just stop struggling and  _feel."_

A surge of panic filled him when he felt the way Gamzee was suddenly pressing over him with his whole body. He couldn't move.  _He couldn't fucking move._ Gamzee was so much stronger than him,  _how was he supposed to stop this?_

Karkat nearly sobbed when he felt Gamzee brush against his exposed bulge. He was sure there was pleasure there, could feel the dull spark of gratification that laced all the way up his spine to the tips of his horns, but it wasn't registering in his think pan because it was  _Gamzee_ doing this, someone he'd been  _pale_ for until a few minutes ago, was maybe still a little pale for, and his body was reacting but his mind wasn't and it was a sensation that made him horridly sick to his stomach.

"There we go," Gamzee purred, coaxing Karkat's bulge to wrap around his fingers. He squeezed, and the smaller of the two choked back a nearly hysterical whine. "We only got a little while before Jack gets his existin' on in our general vicinity, so how about we get this motherfucking show up and moving along?"

Oh, he did  _not_ like the sound of that, didn't like— _oh._

There was a finger prodding at his nook. A single finger, barely brushing along the folds and fucking  _teasing_ him as a hand worked at his bulge. He wasn't an idiot; he knew that Gamzee easily could have just taken him by now and been done with it. But that wasn't what he wanted, on no. He wanted Karkat to  _need_ it. He wanted his own body to betray him, and he wanted to watch it happen—and if his end goal was taking hold of his former moirail's black quadrant, then it was the perfect way to go about it. Being rough wasn't the way to get Karkat to hate him.  _This_ was. Betraying his trust and using him, then throwing him aside like a broken toy after the deed was done.

Gamzee knew him better than anyone, and a spark of fury smoldered in his chest at the thought.

It didn't last long. That spark of anger was soon replaced by alarm as Gamzee rammed that single finger in up to the hilt and fucking  _wiggled_ it with way too much experience, dragging it along his inner walls and touching everything but that  _one spot_ he  _knew_ would get Karkat going. It was torture, nauseatingly pleasurable, and Karkat dragged his claws weakly down his former moirail's arms as he shoved in a second finger and squeezed his bulge in tandem. There was a tight little coil of heat building in a strange place just below his stomach, building slowly and vaguely as if Gamzee was  _almost_ winding it up but not quite, and Karkat's hips jolted despite himself.

Then Gamzee crooked his fingers just right, and Karkat's eyes snapped wide, mouth hanging open in a barely repressed moan as the flats of Gamzee's claws brushed against something  _electric_.

Gamzee's expression twisted into one of sadistic realization, and he prodded the spot again with a clawtip. It  _hurt,_ but the hurt morphed into a pleasurable burn the instant the highblood replaced his claw with the pad of his finger and rubbed teasingly. Karkat had to snap his teeth into his already abused tongue to keep from vocalizing just how sickeningly  _right_  that felt.

"Good?" Gamzee asked, though it was fucking  _obvious_  that it was. He brushed against the spot again. "Hmm…what's your angle, Karbro?"

_Angle?_ He opened his mouth to ask what that was supposed to mean, then realized too late his mistake in releasing the iron lock he'd had on his vocal cords as Gamzee switched angles and prodded that spot again, flicking from side to side then up and down, then just applying pressure and holding. Then, when none of that seemed to produce the reaction he was looking for, he began grinding his fingers in short, circular motions, and this time nothing could stop Karkat from crying out in a hoarse mixture of alarm and pleasure.  _That. That_ was what was directly connected to the coiling heat in his abdomen, that was his angle, and the way Gamzee continued to torture him with short, light movements proved that he  _knew_ that was it.

He was going insane. He laid there, no longer struggling as his muscles turned to mush one by one, pressing towards the relieving pressure even as his think pan begged him to move away, and the hands that had previously been clawing for escape thudded to the ground at his sides. The fight in him had gone, and overriding the underlying nausea was a surge of sickening tension that was just adding to that pressure in his gut. He was working towards  _something,_ though he couldn't say what, and every swipe of Gamzee's fingers inside his nook brought him closer, every squeeze of his writhing bulge stoking that tiny flame into a roaring inferno. He felt close to something,  _so close,_ tiny waves of heat beginning to wash through him, starting from the groin and pulsing outwards and forcing his nook to clench down on the invading fingers involuntarily. He was  _so close._

Then, just like that, everything stopped.

For a moment he felt a horrible combination of disappointment and relief as he thought that Gamzee had decided to stop, that this was enough to put off any other black partner he could possibly have been considering (read: Sollux). But then he realized that the highblood was simply stripping himself of his own clothing, and his think pan screeched in terror while his body lurched forward in hope.

"Look at you," Gamzee purred, taking a moment to just glower at him after his shirt and shoes had been shed. "You gonna up and beg me for it, Karbro?"

_No. Fuck no. Fuck you!_

His answer must have shown on his face, because Gamzee chuckled in amusement and said, "Guess we can save that for next time."

His stomach lurched at the thought.  _Next time._

Time blurred. Karkat thought he saw Gamzee reaching for his pants, thought he saw him undoing the garment and tugging them down until he could step out of them without a struggle. He thought he saw the highblood's monstrous bulge lashing against the inside of his undergarments, staining the white material indigo in its attempt to find contact. He thought he saw Gamzee ripping away the final cloth barrier and allowing his bulge to writhe freely in the open air. He couldn't be sure, though, because he was trapped in a daze by the sensation of that coil in his stomach starting to unwind just slightly, by the subduing biochemicals flooding the air, by the lingering effects of having his hornbeds stimulated, by  _everything_ Gamzee had done.

What finally snapped him out of it was the feeling of the highblood crashing down atop him, arms caging him in, knees landing between his slightly spread legs and wrenching them wide,  _too_  wide, leaving him bare to the world. He felt too exposed like this. Too vulnerable.

Then Gamzee's bulge twined around his, and all worries of being vulnerable were momentarily washed away by the sensation of, well… _that._ Gamzee's bulge was cooler than his own, much larger simply because of his blood caste, and the way it practically engulfed the mutant red of his own genitalia made that coil in his stomach wind tighter than ever. His hands were back at Gamzee's shoulders, squeezing as the slick tentacle writhed and squeezed and pulsed and dragged along his own. He was swiftly approaching that same  _almost_ as before.

Gamzee's low rumble of laughter joined the soft, wet sounds filling the air. "See? Not that bad."

It was bad. Later it would make him sick, make him throw up and curl into a ball and cry. But now he was overwhelmed, stunned by the litany of new sensations Gamzee was bringing to the surface, and the control he had over his vocal cords was slipping away with every contortion of Gamzee's bulge against his.

"Mmm…" Gamzee buried his face in Karkat's shoulder momentarily. His bulge released Karkat's in a single, long pull.

_What…?_ Karkat thrust up unthinkingly in search of the contact he would hate himself for later. He wanted it back. Where had it gone? Had it gone to—?

He screeched suddenly in shock as Gamzee, giving him not a moment of warning, fed his bulge into the candy red of Karkat's nook and  _didn't stop._ Lightning raced up his spine as the highblood shoved in hard, letting himself slide in in a single drag that felt like it lasted forever. It fucking  _burned_ taking that much that fast, and Karkat's own bulge retracted a good few inches in reaction to the shock of it all. The pleasure was gone. It was gone, and the horror was back along with the pain, and he scrabbled along Gamzee's shoulders in shocked alarm.

"Gamz—!" he choked out, even though he didn't really trust his vocal cords to listen to him. "Gamzee,  _please—!"_

Gamzee wasn't listening to him. He was panting heavily against his shoulder, whole body heaving with visible,  _audible_  pleasure as he tried to compose himself enough to move.

Karkat dug his claws weakly into his shoulders. "Gamzee!" he repeated in a breathless whine, but the highblood's only response was to pull himself closer and move experimentally inside the younger troll.

Pain. White hot and intense, it cleaved him in two. He was small, slight of build, he wasn't  _meant_ to take a highblood without preparation. Even with his inexperience he knew this, and Gamzee had to as well.

_Caliginous relationships are supposed to involve pain,_ he reminded himself.  _He knows that, he's—_

Karkat's thoughts faded off into a sharp gasp of agony as Gamzee began to thrash in earnest. He'd seemingly deemed himself ready, paying his partner no mind, and was moving  _hard._

The smaller of the two swiftly closed his eyes. He couldn't look anymore. He couldn't see himself being destroyed, couldn't see the way Gamzee's bulge was fucking  _moving_ beneath his skin. He couldn't do it.

"Karbro."

He turned his head to one side. It didn't feel good. It just felt sick and painful, and even when Gamzee reached to the back of his nook and brushed against his seedflap, a place that was supposed to feel fucking  _amazing_ when stimulated, he felt nothing but disgust. The pleasure had passed, and all that was left was the sick sense of being violated by someone he'd trusted with his life not ten minutes before.

_"Karbro."_

Still, he refused to look. Even when Gamzee gave him a punishing lash of his bulge, ripping along his inner wall and drawing blood, he just whimpered and pressed his cheek against the ground.

There was a low growl in his ear. "Motherfucking  _look at me!"_

_No._ Gamzee had to allow him this, at least.  _Don't make me look at you._

Claws pricked dangerously close to his eyes. "If you don't up and look me in the face, motherfucker, I'll make sure you never look at anything  _ever again."_ The pads of his fingers pressed against his closed eyes just briefly, a light kiss of skin to skin. A threat.

He would do it. He would, and even though a part of Karkat thought he'd rather go blind, he still forced his eyes open and stared his betrayer right in those nauseatingly indigo eyes.

Gamzee smirked at him the instant he saw his mutant red eyes flicker open. "Good," he purred. "Now  _don't motherfucking look away._  I want to see your face."

He did as he was told. What else could he do, just…let Gamzee blind him? He stared the clown right in the face and grappled with an all-consuming sense of shame as he fucking  _lashed_ inside him again, purposefully skimming along his breaking point with just enough pressure to provide a reaction but not enough to actually get him any closer to release. He was desperately thankful for the fact that he couldn't see his own face at the moment, because based on Gamzee's approving growl he must have been sporting quite the expression.

This version of Gamzee was a curse. He shuddered, wondering just where his sopor-loving, goofy quadrantmate had gotten off to and who he was dealing with now. He  _was_  a curse, and  _he_ was cursed, and maybe this was what he got for messing everything up his entire life and  _oh,_ Gamzee needed to  _stop doing that_ or he was going to lose all control over the tiny chirrs and whimpers that were pushing to escape.

Gamzee chuckled and didn't let up, using just the tip of his bulge to flick over Karkat's breaking point. He was grinding in those little circular motions again, grinding endlessly and with just enough pressure to wind the younger troll up without pushing him over the edge. "Are you close?" he rasped in a low tone, and  _fuck_ him because he  _knew_ just how close he was and he was dragging it out on  _purpose_. "Are you gonna up and spill that miraculous red all over the ground?"

A soft moan found its way through Karkat's clenched teeth as Gamzee returned attention to that nauseatingly pleasurable spot. He wasn't letting up. It was almost painful now, the feather-light touch brushing along that single spot as the rest of Gamzee's bulge stretched him impossibly wide. He couldn't take it. He  _couldn't_.

"Don't come," Gamzee growled in his ear, even as he flicked the tip of his bulge at that spot inside him. One of his cool hands dipped to grab at Karkat's writhing bulge. He squeezed, rubbing with deliberate firmness at his breaking point, and Karkat saw white for a split second before regaining control of himself. "Hold it in, Karbro."

How was he supposed to do that? He couldn't, and Gamzee fucking knew it.

A tongue traced up his horn teasingly. A hand clenched and unclenched around his bulge. Gamzee undulated inside him. The fire in Karkat's stomach grew blazingly hot. The coil tightened.

"Don't," Gamzee warned in a growl, increasing the pressure of his grip and ramming his bulge against Karkat's breaking point all at once, and it was over. The mutant gave a hoarse, rasping cry, the coil inside him suddenly snapping and washing through him in waves of clenching heat that started in his nook and trickled outwards until the tingling aftershocks faded from his fingertips.

"Oh,  _fuck,"_  Gamzee groaned low in his throat, gasping as Karkat's nook rippled and squeezed and massaged his bulge, and Karkat wailed in a confused mixture of pain and pleasure as Gamzee took advantage of the tightness created by his climax and thrashed within him with blinding force. He was unforgiving as Karkat rode out his release, taking him roughly and without regard for his health, no doubt tearing him in several places in his eagerness to find his own release.

It didn't take long. The moment Karkat had been dreading arrived in a surge of sickening coolness low in his gut, denoted by the soft, rasping pants against his neck and the punishing rhythm being burned into his insides by the slick organ invading him. A shocking jolt against his seedflap told him that Gamzee had just made contact. He almost opened his mouth to beg, then, but was silenced in a choking gasp as he felt the tip of Gamzee's bulge shove past the delicate tissue and into his empty gene bladder.  _No,_ he thought, panic rising in his gut. He tried to struggle, but Gamzee didn't even seem to notice. The larger troll held him down, pulsed once, twice, stretched as far as he could inside him, and came with a low moan.

Karkat had to swallow down bile in his throat as he felt a gush of cool liquid enter his gene bladder. There was  _so much_ of it, as he'd known there would be, and Gamzee wasn't drawing away. The highblood just held himself in place and made his victim take all of his genetic material, even when he was met with tiny whines of pain at the stretching of the receiving organ. Karkat was full, fuller than he'd ever been, and he sobbed with overstimulation as another spurt of indigo splashed inside him. There was too much for his gene bladder to take, and he felt it drooling out around Gamzee's bulge as he slowly drew to completion. There was one more spurt of liquid, and then he was done.

The younger of the two lay limp as Gamzee finally slid his bulge free and let it retract back into his sheathe. Then he just knelt there, watching with fascination as indigo leaked from Karkat's abused nook and formed a puddle on the ground beneath him. Most of his genetic material was still held by his victim's gene bladder, unable to release until stimulated in the proper manner, but Karkat knew that Gamzee wasn't going to help with that particular part of the pailing process. He'd had his fun, had used him so harshly that some of his own blood was streaking the purple material beneath him, and now he was going to slip away and wait for shock and hatred to set in.

"See?" Gamzee drawled, slipping back into his pants. His shirt and undergarments remained untouched. "Wasn't so bad, was it, Karbro?"

_I hate you,_ he thought, but he would never say it aloud. That would be admitting defeat, even if the hatred he felt was of the type that wanted to see Gamzee dead.  _I never want you as my kismesis, you sick fuck._

Gamzee raised his head as if he'd heard something far away. Was Jack here to put him out of his misery?

"Looks like that's my cue to leave," the juggalo rumbled. He leaned down and smeared a hand through the red painting Karkat's chest with a teasing smirk. "See you around, best friend."

Then he was gone, vanishing into thin air, and Karkat was left to pass out in a puddle of blood and genetic material.


	2. Sollux: Mend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter! I meant to get this up way earlier but apparently I've fallen back into my habit of posting one chapter a week. In any case, thanks for all the support! I wasn't expecting this to get more than like one comment, but you guys have been great! I hope you like this chapter just as much, and don't hesitate to leave a comment if you do.

Sollux's eyes snapped open with a gasp.

He flailed for a moment, embarrassingly caught off guard and struggling to figure out where he was. The strike of his elbow against a hard surface beneath him let him know that he was lying on something firm, probably the tiled floor, and when a fist knocked against a plastic thing jutting up off the ground to his left, he realized that he was next to a computer tower. It had to be the main room of the lab.

…The main room of the lab, where he'd been attacked and knocked unconscious by one Gamzee Makara.

"Fuck!" He scrambled to get to his feet, only to groan and slump back onto his shoulder when the world tilted around him. He remembered it now, the way Gamzee's fist had crashed catastrophically into his temple, and the head wound was making his surroundings shake with dizzying pain. Thank fuck Gamzee hadn't used his club to put him down, otherwise he wouldn't be getting back up.

He rolled onto his stomach with a stifled groan. He wasn't sure who was around, and he didn't want to alert any potential aggressors to his presence. Instead he settled for reaching out with his psionics and letting them dance across the objects in the room, searching for any living forms.

_There._ Just to his left. And another troll in what felt like the center of the room. Two of them were still alive, at least.

His stomach dropped suddenly.  _How long was I out? If it's been any longer than a few minutes, it's likely that GZ has already hunted everyone down and wiped them out. KK may be…_

He shook himself out of it with a low growl. No,  _fuck_ that, Karkat was fine. He was Gamzee's  _moirail_ for fuck's sake, there was no way that he'd been harmed. Even the most insane troll wouldn't lay a hand on their palemate with the intent to seriously harm them. He was  _fine_.

Sensing that there were no other enemies in the room, Sollux grappled with his unresponsive limbs in an attempt to stand. He managed to get his knees braced against the ground and his palms pressed flat to the tile before he had to stop and dry heave a little. Groaning, he raised his head and took in his surroundings.

The main room of the lab, as expected. Terezi was still slumped against the wall a few feet away from him, chest moving slightly in her unconsciousness. Her sword hadn't moved from where it was sticking out of her gut. In the center of the room, the only other living form he'd sensed turned out to be Kanaya.

_Fuck…and I was so sure she was dead. How did she make it with her head crushed in like that?_

A surge of nausea swiftly told him that there would be time to worry about such things later. For now, there was probably a crazed troll running rampant in the lab, and he had a responsibility to find him and make sure he wasn't doing anything foolish.  _If he's going to kill all of us, then…I guess I'll just have to go down fighting, too. No sense in being the last member of my species._

It took a good few minutes to get to his feet, but he managed it. He nearly threw up a few times, but he managed it. Once he was on his feet he gathered his wits and then pulsed out a wave of psionic energy, a sort of spider's web (and Vriska would just  _love_ that analogy, he was sure) that would catch any sign of life and let him know where that life was.

He waited. Frowned.

…There it was. Several flickers of life, all in different locations. Two felt normal and calm. They had no idea what was going on. Two more felt weak. They were with him in the main room. One was frighteningly strong, moving swiftly through what felt like the ventilation shafts that threaded through the lab.  _Gamzee._ It had to be. At least he hadn't killed  _everyone_.

Sollux gathered his wits in preparation to move, fully determined to message those that were still alive and warn them, when he felt something else twinge along his web of psionics.

_What the fuck?_ He sent out another pulse of energy, this one stronger, and felt for the reverberations.  _There it is again._ A dull flutter, a flicker of life that sputtered and danced like a fading flame. It was slow. Sluggish. As if it had been drugged.

Something felt off. Something about the feel of that signal made his gut twist with worry. Something was telling him that it was  _wrong._

_I have to go there,_ he found himself thinking, not really knowing why. If it was just a hurt troll, there was no use in finding them. He should go after the ones that still stood a chance, those that were okay to fight. People like Terezi and Kanaya and the owner of that flickering life signature were done for.

He paused. Rocked back and forth on his feet. Then he groaned, because he knew he had to go to that troll, whoever they were, and took his first hobbling step towards the exit to the main room of the lab.

 

* * *

 

On his way to find the mystery flicker of life, Sollux messaged the remaining trolls and let them know what was going on. He hadn't checked the responses to his warning, but he assumed that Vriska in particular was out looking for a clown to skewer in retribution for the harming of her dearest friend and moirail. Gamzee should be well occupied for a while, which meant that Sollux had all of his focus to devote to the thing that was sending increasingly faint flickers of distress along his psionic net.

It took him a while to find the source. Eventually, though, he found it.

He knew he was getting close when the faint sensation of dread grew stronger. He followed the sensation for as long as he could, winding through the hallways of the lab, and soon he realized with a sinking stomach that he was walking into Gamzee's portion of the meteor. He couldn't sense Gamzee around, so he should be safe—but he just felt so  _unnerved,_ and every little sound made him jump out of his skin. He felt like he'd been searching forever.

Then he turned a corner, and he had to lean against a wall for a moment to avoid collapsing out of sheer shock and horror.

It took a good few moments before he could start to process what he was seeing.  _Red. So much red._ Red everywhere, splattering the floor and streaking across everything in sight, mixing with slight traces of indigo, tracing across the limp form of something that was definitely a troll. A very small, very limp, very wrecked troll.

It was blood. It had to be blood. And there was only one troll that had blood like that.

Sollux forced himself to move closer, preparing himself for the worst. He'd been wrong. He'd been  _so_ wrong, and Gamzee had found Karkat and shredded him and splattered his candy red blood all over the place. He'd eviscerated him.

He swallowed down a lump in his throat and fought back the burning in his eyes.  _I'm stronger than this. I can do this._

He reached Karkat with a tiny, choking groan. He didn't want to see, didn't want to confirm that the person that he'd one day hoped to have as his kismesis was dead. But he forced himself to kneel, to let cooling blood soak into his pants as he reached out and rolled Karkat onto his back, and…

_Wait, what?_

Sollux blinked down at Karkat's face. He was  _grimacing_. Curling his features up in pain, pain that shifted to mere discomfort as his body was forcibly maneuvered. He was… _alive?_

Then…what was with all the…?

Just like that, everything clicked into place and Sollux really  _did_ throw up, having to lean off to the side to avoid spewing his dinner all over his friend's prone form. His prone,  _naked_ form, which was covered in something that was definitely  _not_  blood.

_Oh, fuck. I don't know how to deal with this. I don't know how to fucking deal with this._

Sollux knelt there in shock. He knelt there, unsure of what to do, wincing as Karkat leaned his face into the hand currently settled on his cheek, and his blood pusher broke then and there. All of the hate he'd ever felt for Karkat dissolved into a surge of overwhelming pity as he stared down at the utter wreck he'd become.

_Fuck Gamzee,_ he decided.  _Let Vriska take care of him. Karkat is more important right now._

He forced himself into action. "KK?" he prompted softly, wincing as he was forced to place a hand on a red-crusted shoulder in order to shake his friend awake.

There was no response. Karkat just laid there, completely limp and devoid of consciousness.

"KK," he repeated softly, running a hand through his hair and brushing across the base of a nubby horn. "KK, come on…are you in there?"

Nothing.

He sucked in a sharp breath. Okay, fine—he'd do this without Karkat's help.

_I need to get him to the ablution block,_ Sollux thought, hesitantly starting to shift Karkat into a position that would make it easier to get him off the ground. He watched carefully for any sign of pain, but there was nothing. He was so far unconscious; he wasn't sure what could drag him out of it. And fuck, if Gamzee had done this to  _him,_ he thought he'd be just as eager to avoid the waking world.

He managed to get Karkat across his shoulders after a good minute of struggling. He almost gagged at the way his friend's genetic material (and fuck, that's really what it was, wasn't it?) soaked into his shirt, but it was necessary.

Dragging Karkat to the ablution block took forever. He managed it, though, and soon he was dumping the damaged mutant into the ablution chamber and making sure all of his limbs were tucked inside before cranking the water onto full blast.

_That_ got a reaction.

Karkat whimpered and curled onto his side, clutching at his stomach as the water beat down onto his battered form. Already the red was starting to wash away, flooding down the drain in a rush of pink-tinged water. The more material was swept away the more Sollux could see that the only marks on him were those of bruises and light scratches. He hadn't been hurt badly on the physical plane, not on the outside, but…mentally, he wasn't so sure.

"KK," he whispered again. He reached into the chamber and pressed a palm against Karkat's face, tilting his head upward and seeking out eye contact. "KK, are you awake?"

He blinked blearily up at him. "S-Sol…?"

His chest flooded with relief. He wasn't broken, and that was a start. "Yeah, KK, it's me. You're safe now, you hear me?  _Safe."_

Karkat frowned, confused. "Safe?" And oh god, he sounded like a two-week-old wiggler babbling his first word. Sollux's blood pusher bled scarlet.

"Yeah," he managed, "safe. I'm not going to let anything else happen to you, KK, so just lean back and let me take care of you."

Another long, heavy blink. Then Karkat was shaking his head, slurring, "But…you're supposed to be my kismesis."

"Shush," he soothed, crossing into pale territory as he dragged a palm down his cheek. He couldn't bring himself to care how badly he was smearing quadrants. All he knew was that Karkat was in pain, and this was something that could help him  _not_  be in pain, and so he had to try it. "Don't worry about that now. Just rest."

"Rest," Karkat echoed in a dazed tone.

Sollux lowered a hand to his chest, rubbing off a patch of red that the water had failed to wash away. Most of the genetic material was gone now, but something was tugging at the back of his think pan worriedly.  _Why hadn't there been any indigo material?_  Gamzee didn't seem the type to just leave before he got what he wanted, and there hadn't been nearly enough of his color on the ground to constitute the sexual completion of a normal adolescent troll. Either Gamzee had left before finishing (unlikely) or…

A jolt of dread seared through him as another possibility leapt to the front of his think pan.  _No…surely he wouldn't have…_

Sollux reached down and tilted Karkat's face up just slightly. "You still with me?"

Karkat nodded blearily. "M'here."

"Good." He reached the other hand into the shower, water creeping up to soak his sleeves, and settled it firmly on his friend's chest. "KK, I need to…" He hesitated. "I'm going to put my hand on your stomach, okay?"

He startled a little. "Huh? Why would you…?"

Sollux shushed him gently. "Just trust me on this. I'm not going to hurt you, but if Gamzee, uh…"

And okay, mentioning Gamzee had been  _completely_ pan-addled, because now Karkat was anything but calm, writhing and whimpering and pressing himself hard against the tile of the ablution chamber to get away from Sollux's hands.

"Woah!" Sollux yelped. He was torn between reaching in to comfort him and drawing back to stop the sensory overload, but  _no—_ he couldn't pull away, couldn't leave Karkat alone if Gamzee had done what he thought he had. "KK, calm the fuck down! I'm not going to hurt you; I'm not waxing black right now!"

Karkat kept thrashing though, and it was clear that he wasn't in any state of mind to listen to him. He was going to hurt himself.

No, scratch that, he  _had_  hurt himself—there was red beading up around where he'd torn a claw with his frantic scrabbling against the side of the trap.

_No. Hell no. Enough of this._

"Fuck, KK," he rasped, steeling himself. "I'm sorry." Then he reached out and sealed his hands around his friend's horns, squeezing in rhythmic pulses. It made him sick, touching his dearest friend in a way that Gamzee had no doubt indulged in mere hours ago, but he knew that it was the best and only way to keep Karkat from hurting himself unless he wanted to leap into the trap and hold him down.

At least it was working. The longer he squeezed the less Karkat struggled, and soon he was lying limp in the bottom of the ablution chamber with short, gasping breaths.

"Fuck, fuck,  _fuck,"_ Sollux repeated on an endless loop, removing his hands from Karkat's horns and returning them to his face, to his chest, making sure he was okay. "I'm so sorry, KK, I'm  _so sorry._ " He was in the trap. When had he crawled into the trap? He wasn't sure, but now there was water soaking his shirt and running down his back, and he was suddenly crouched over Karkat in the exact way he'd been trying to avoid. "I just need to put my hand on your stomach, okay? I swear I'm not going to hurt you."

Karkat just blinked up at him blearily. "Sollux?"

"Yeah," he breathed, "yeah, I'm here. It won't hurt." He slid his hand down Karkat's chest with a feather light touch. He wouldn't scare him. He wouldn't.

His palm settled over Karkat's stomach, and he pressed down gently in an attempt to feel for what he was looking for. He murmured reassurances into the smaller troll's ear when he started to writhe just barley against his touch, inching his palm down and pressing a bit harder. And oh, that made Karkat  _whine._ Yeah, he knew exactly what he was dealing with here, denoted by the firm pressure he could feel beneath the flesh of Karkat's lower stomach.

This was  _bad_.

Swiftly, he considered his options. Karkat had no concupiscent partners, and he was too out of it to take care of things himself. He could just leave the guy alone and hope he made it through, but trolls had been known to  _die_ because of infections caused by the extended retention of a partner's genetic material. What had Gamzee been  _thinking_ , actually using Karkat's gene bladder to empty himself into? He had to have known this would happen, especially when he didn't fill his end of the deal and get Karkat over a bucket to release the material. Not that it was that simple, of course—releasing retained genetic material required stimulation, required the receiving partner undergo direct contact with the seedflap before it would relax enough to let the material drain out. Karkat was just too out of it to do it himself, and letting him retain the material could have serious repercussions.

_This is so fucked._

Wincing, Sollux pushed himself back so he could look Karkat straight in the face.  _He'll hate me for this, and not in the way I originally wanted. God, I don't want him to hate me right now._ "KK?"

The mutantblood turned his head slightly and peered up at him through half-closed eyes. "Mm?"

He bit down on his tongue. Breathed in shakily. Unclamped his teeth. "Your gene bladder is full."

Karkat just stared in bleary confusion.

"Do you remember what that means?"

One of Karkat's hands batted at him with a seeming lack of purpose. "What?" he murmured.

Sollux swallowed hard. "We need to, uh…release it. Release the material it's holding."

Another blink. "Wha…?"

_I could knock him out,_ he thought suddenly, blood pusher nearly breaking in two at that soft, confused look Karkat was giving him.  _Knock him out and get the material out of him. But he'd still know I did it once he regained his head, and then he'd just be mad that I forced him to stay unconscious for the entire thing. He might take it as even more of an insult that I was trying to protect him, that I would think him weak._

Karkat shuffled slightly, the beginnings of a whine building in his throat. He was afraid.

"It's going to be okay," Sollux told him, even if he wasn't sure it was true. "I've just got to get that material out of you, okay? I'll do it as fast as I can, I promise, but it  _has_  to come out."

Karkat cocked his head quizzically. He was too dazed to understand what was happening, completely whacked out of his pan by what Gamzee had done to him.

"It'll be okay," he repeated. There was no way to ease Karkat into this, though, no matter what he said. "Trust me to take care of you."

Another quizzical blink.

Sollux sucked in a deep breath. "Okay then…just don't kick, okay?"

Not waiting for a response, he took hold of Karkat's ankles with his psionics and gently uncurled them from underneath him. He deposited one ankle over the edge of the trap and propped the other up on his shoulder, and Karkat squirmed uncomfortably at the vulnerable position. He didn't seem too alarmed, though, put under by what had to be the onset of shock. Sollux left Karkat's legs free of bindings in hopes of making the whole situation a little less horrible. If things got bad, he'd restrain him with psionics.  _God_ , he hoped it wouldn't come to that.

"Here we go," he whispered, more for his sake than Karkat's. Then he flattened his hand to Karkat's stomach and slid the other down, down,  _down_ as far as it could go, fingertips inches from the entrance to his nook.

It was only then that the situation seemed to register with Karkat. He peered up with a startled, almost betrayed look, rasping out, "Sollux?"

The sound of his name was like a knife to the throat. He slid a coil of psionic energy up and wrapped it around Karkat's horns, squeezing lightly and taking away some of his coherency. Then, swallowing down bile, he slid his fingers delicately against Karkat's nook.

Karkat reacted as if he'd been stung. He jolted, albeit somewhat weakly, and swatted at Sollux's hands with an alarmed chirp. He had no idea what was happening.

"Calm down," Sollux tried, though it was useless. Karkat only struggled harder. "I'm trying to help you!"

The younger troll just whimpered in response. "S-Sol, why're you…?"

Oh,  _fuck_ , there went his blood pusher. But he had to do this. He had to help Karkat.

He slid a finger into his friend's nook, ignoring the high-pitched whine that followed. Karkat was struggling now, thrashing weakly against the sides of the trap, and Sollux had no choice but to close psionic bonds around his wrists and ankles to stop him from hurting himself. He could still feel the firm lump of his gene bladder from the surface of his stomach, and he had to get it drained  _now_. With that in mind, he slid in a second finger and jammed them up hard in search of the little nub he was looking for. To his horror (and partial relief), Karkat's nook was still loose and pliant beneath his fingers. Gamzee had done his work well, as sickening as it was.

Sollux pressed his fingers up further in search of the bundle of nerves that would help Karkat's gene bladder relax enough to release into the trap. The smaller troll was still writhing, still trying to get away, and the strain on his psionics was starting add to the inherent stress of the situation.

He pushed deeper, and multiple things happened at once.

First, Karkat gasped out in a mixture of pain and betrayal and pleasure as Sollux finally managed to get his fingers on that bundle of nerves. Second, Sollux's bulge took a sudden interest in the situation, the scent of Karkat's mild arousal getting to him despite his overwhelming disgust with himself. And third, the door to the ablution block swung open with a shriek.

There was a moment of stillness, of silence, as Sollux half-turned to face the intruder.

Then it all went to hell.

The figure in the doorway let out a furious screech, and a moment later Sollux was being ripped away from Karkat and slammed harshly into the wall, a chainsaw revving in his ears.

"You  _monster!"_ shrieked the figure, and she was fucking  _glowing._ "How could you, Sollux? What were you  _thinking?"_

"Woah, woah!" Sollux yelped as the chainsaw approached his face. "KN, it's not what it looks like!"

"Then you'd better explain swiftly, because I could smell Karkat's distress all the way from the main room!"

_Smell?_ he questioned silently, but there wasn't any time to worry about that right now, nor was there time to worry about just how Kanaya had managed to get back on her feet as if Gamzee had never bashed her head in. All that mattered now was Karkat. "It was GZ!"

She paused. "Gamzee?"

Sollux nodded vigorously. "I went looking for KK and found him sprawled out on the ground in GZ's block, covered in his own genetic material. He's the one that did it, not me!"

Kanaya narrowed her eyes. "Then what were you doing when I found you just now? Was I mistaken in believing that I saw you violating him?"

"I was trying to fucking help him! KN, feel his stomach!"

Her eyes narrowed even further, until all that was visible was a slit of jade. But still she obeyed, stepping neatly over to Karkat and dropping her chainsaw in the process. "Karkat?" she whispered, reaching out to place a gentle hand on his cheek. "Karkat, I'm here. You're going to be okay."

The smaller troll looked up with that same dazed expression as before. But then he saw Kanaya, felt the palm on his cheek, and his eyes welled up with relieved tears. In a flash of movement Kanaya was covered in a Vantas-sized blanket. It happened to be a very  _naked_  blanket, but she seemed focused on more important things.

"I know," Kanaya whispered, even though she didn't. Not even Sollux knew exactly what had happened. "I'm just going to put a hand on your stomach for a moment." She didn't ask if it was okay; she  _made_ it okay. Sollux watched in awe as she shooshed Karkat with deadly efficiency, patting his face and quieting his heaving gasps for air. Leaving one hand on his face, she dropped the other to his stomach and felt where Sollux had indicated.

Then she gasped, choking out, "Is that…?"

"His gene bladder, yeah. Gamzee used it."

Her expression grew pained. "And that was why you were, ah…doing what you were doing?"

He gave a swift nod. "Yeah, that's right."

"Oh, goodness." Kanaya leaned into Karkat with a dazed look. "Oh my."

"Yeah," Sollux said again. "Yeah."

The two sat in silence for a long while after that, Kanaya cradling Karkat to her chest as she no doubt tried to come up with a solution that didn't involve forcing her moirail to endure another dose of sexual abuse.

"I was trying to help," Sollux said at last. "I was trying, but he wasn't calming down and I didn't get very far. He kept freaking out."

Kanaya carded her fingers through Karkat's hair. "I would imagine so."

More silence, thick and awkward.

Sollux was the one to break it. "It has to come out, KN. You know it does, he could fucking die from that shit."

Her voice wavered. "I know."

Sollux waited. Tapped his foot impatiently when Kanaya didn't move. "Look, I can handle this. You can leave." No one would want to see their moirail like that, he knew. No one other than Gamzee.

"Leave?" Kanaya murmured. She clenched her fingers, one set twisting in Karkat's hair as the other pressed against his shoulders from behind. She seemed to be grappling with something, some unknowable hardship as she held her newfound moirail so close that it almost appeared as if she were attempting to melt into him. Then she seemed to find her decision, as she sat up straighter than ever and nodded to Sollux determinedly. "Sollux. Please proceed."

He stared at her as if she'd lost her pan. "What?"

"Proceed," she repeated. "Please assist Karkat in emptying his gene bladder."

"And…you're going to stay." It wasn't a question.

"Yes, I am."

"Why…?"

"Because he is my moirail now, and if I can provide him comfort and keep him calm for the duration of this, then it is my responsibility to do so."

"KN, I hate to burst your bubble, but I'm gonna have to…y'know…stimulate his seedflap in order to drain it."

She dipped her head. "I am aware."

"And you're seriously going to sit through it. You're going to sit there while I touch him."

"I am."

"You can handle that?"

"You need me. I can keep him calm."

"That wasn't what I asked."

She sucked in a sharp breath. Then, "I'll manage. I won't watch anything but his face; that should help some. I'll do everything I can to keep him placated."

He watched her for a long moment, waiting for her to take it back. But when she did nothing but watch him coolly, levelly, he realized that she was in it for the long haul. "Okay," he rasped, and he felt like someone was attempting to tear his blood pusher out through his throat. "Let's do this. We're making this happen."

It only took a few moments to get into position. There simply wasn't enough room in the trap for all three of them, so Kanaya scooped Karkat up and deposited him on the floor with his head and shoulders leaned against her thighs, tucking her legs neatly beneath her. Sollux took up his place between his legs, spreading them back to their previous position.

"Kanaya?" Karkat rumbled uncertainly. He was still dazed, still out of it, but a bit of his coherency was returning. Kanaya's palm batting him across the face helped take care of that, though.

"Shoosh," she soothed him, and it was a hundred times more effective when she did it. "We're going to take care of you now, Karkat. Please relax, and it will all be over soon."

A few notes of a rusty purr was her response. He seemed comforted, at least, even if Sollux was about to throw all that comfort out the window. One of Karkat's hands (the one with the ripped claw) reached out and swiped dazedly at Kanaya until she curled her fingers around his.

"He should have dumped Gamzee a long time ago," Sollux muttered without thinking. "You're obviously better for him."

She dipped her head gracefully. "And  _you're_ obviously better for him as a kismesis."

Sollux swallowed hard. Right now, all he felt for Karkat was the deepest red.

"Go on," Kanaya urged, no doubt seeing his conflict. "Don't worry about quadrants right now. Just help him."

She was right. Whatever quadrant drama might be starting with Karkat after this, it wasn't important right now.

"Okay," Sollux breathed. "Okay, just…keep him as calm as you can."

"That's what I said I would do."

Sollux nodded, then turned his attention fully on the task at hand. Karkat was relaxed for the moment, and that made it all the easier to nudge his legs a little further apart and settle neatly between them, pressing his hand up against his friend's pelvis in warning before neatly sliding a pair of fingers down to slide against his nook.

Karkat jolted. He was already starting to struggle again, writhing slightly as a low growling whine stuttered to life in place of his placated purr. Kanaya was there, though. She was there, and as Karkat reached out in hopes of clawing the person between his legs, she gently grabbed onto his wrists and rubbed soothing circles into his skin. Taking both wrists in one hand, she moved to pat his cheeks gently. "Shh," she murmured, dipping down to press her lips against his forehead, curling her body around his to the best of her ability. "You're okay, Karkat, you're okay."

"K-Kanaya, why…?" Karkat wriggled, then sighed and fell limp when her free hand brushed against his hornbeds. "What're you doing to me?"

"Helping you," was the soft response. "Do you trust me?"

He frowned. "Yeah, I…yeah."

"Good. Then don't fight, okay? I promise that everything will be fine if you just let it happen."

Karkat blinked up at her with unfocused eyes. "Okay," he managed, but it was clear he wasn't convinced.

Kanaya released his wrists in favor of sealing both palms to his cheeks. Then she looked up and gave Sollux a silent nod.  _Go on._

He obeyed without a word. He gently rubbed around the entrance to Karkat's nook, hoping to familiarize him with the feeling and show him that he wasn't going to hurt him. The smaller troll tensed slightly, received a pat on the cheek from Kanaya, and was still.

_Good,_ Sollux thought.  _This is good._  He withdrew his hand just long enough to resituate himself, ready to press in for a second time—this time, hopefully, with much less yelling and kicking. For a moment he almost warned Karkat, almost opened his mouth and blurted out something stupid. But then he realized that Karkat might not find it exactly comforting that his prospective kismesis (which was debatable now, but he'd get to thinking about that later) was handling him in his vulnerable state. He needed to stay quiet and let Karkat focus only on Kanaya.

With that in mind he winced, steeled himself, and pushed into his friend's nook with a single finger.

Kanaya was already shooshing Karkat before it happened, and her soft reassurances were probably the only thing that kept the smaller troll from flipping his shit when he felt fingers at his already abused nook. As it was he flailed suddenly, whimpering and growling and keening high and desperate, doing his best to wrap around his moirail like a blanket. He'd given up on trying to attack Sollux or push him away, though, and that was enough.

"You're okay," Kanaya whispered, and Sollux wished he could comfort him too without crossing into pale territory. "Shh, Karkat, it's all going to be okay. Just trust me and relax. No one will hurt you here; we're only going to help."

Sollux didn't stop to hear Karkat's response. Now that he was in he was going to make it fast and painless, and it was with that in mind that he slid in a second finger and pushed up hard but slow into his friend's pliant body. He tried to block out Karkat's alarmed chirp, then Kanaya's answering murmur of comfort. He just reached up in search of the nerve cluster that would help release the retained genetic material.

It didn't take long to find it. Sollux had never done this on another troll, but he was intimately aware of the area on himself—and that meant that when he slid his fingers over a sight protrusion along the inner walls of Karkat's nook and felt the answering shudder, he knew exactly what had happened. Returning to that area, he brushed his fingertips along it again and again.

Running his fingers along that spot had the exact reaction he was looking for. Karkat's nook squeezed down on the intruding digits, and Sollux glanced up to see that his expression had softened into one of crinkly-eyed pleasure. Soft lips parted, and Sollux felt the sudden desire to reach up and kiss him (but that was stupid, so stupid, and so he just turned his head down and continued his work).

"See?" Kanaya was whispering, even as Sollux started circling the little bundle of nerves with his fingers, grinding in hard and pressing a hand down on his stomach to make the sensation even more intense. "It feels good, doesn't it? It's okay."

Sollux pushed his fingers in hard, and Karkat whimpered. It was a good sound, though, one of embarrassed gratification, and he repeated the action. He wasn't touching Karkat's seedflap yet, but it was surely loosening its grip on Gamzee's genetic material by now.  _I'll give him a bit more, then go for it._

Luckily, it seemed that all the fight had drained out of Karkat. Sollux heard nothing but harsh, damp breaths and tiny clicks and sighs, and as he worked his fingers further up into the smaller troll he found himself being met with tiny rolls of Karkat's hips. His skin was growing redder with every touch.

Sollux felt something brush along his wrist, and it nearly made him jump out of his skin. But then he looked down and saw that it was just Karkat, just his bulge starting to unsheathe, and he knew that the younger troll was almost there.

"You're doing great," Kanaya whispered. Karkat was clutching at her with more desperation now, panting against her stomach. "It's almost over."

It was, and it was time to end it. Sollux pressed his fingers back in—but this time he aimed further back, reaching directly for Karkat's seedflap. The membrane formed a delicate sphincter, unable to handle much direct stimulation and unwilling to loosen except for when the troll in question had been worked up to it. Normally the penetrating partner would only have to reach back and brush the entrance once to get the gene bladder to release after pailing, but this was different. When Sollux stroked his fingers along it, Karkat only gave a shuddering, rasping cry of alarm. It  _hurt_. That much was obvious.

"Oh no," Kanaya soothed, patting everywhere she could reach. "Oh no, Karkat, you're okay, you're safe, you don't have to struggle. Just let it happen."

Sollux gave it a moment before going back in. When he did he was gentler, moving with soft, small motions against Karkat's seedflap and trying to coax it into loosening. It didn't give, though, and he gradually applied more and more pressure. Karkat was mewling now, full out gasping and choking on air, but he couldn't stop.

"He's too tense," Sollux hissed softly. "Kanaya, can you—?"

"I've got it," she murmured. Then she was reaching down and repositioning herself so that her thighs were on either side of Karkat's shoulders, drawing his upper body closer to her chest. One of her arms came to rest atop his chest, fully boxing him in. If Sollux had been in the position he would have found it claustrophobic—but Karkat seemed to love it, snuggling down into his moirail's arms and pressing his cheek into her thigh, the first notes of a purr starting up as her other hand started to brush through his hair lovingly. Fingers plucked at his hornbeds, only intensifying the rusty sound.

Kanaya looked up to meet Sollux's eyes. "Okay," she prompted, "go on."

Sollux obeyed without question. He brushed his fingers back up against Karkat's seedflap, and this time when the younger male flinched Kanaya was there to envelop him entirely and keep him calm. Her lips were moving, whispering things into her moirail's ears that Sollux couldn't quite hear. Soon he was calm again.

Sollux pushed up again.  _He's looser,_ he realized, prodding up at the delicate tissue, mindful of his claws.  _Kanaya's helping; he's almost ready to burst._ He rubbed again, and Karkat's inner walls clamped down for just a moment before loosening again.  _Oh yeah. He's close._

After that, things went quickly. Sollux kept constant pressure on the entrance to Karkat's gene bladder, kept changing angles and alternating pressure and trying to find the best combination of the two, and Karkat slowly loosened up more and more, melting into a puddle of reluctant pleasure as his most sensitive spots were stimulated ruthlessly. Soon enough he was gasping with every inhale, whimpering with every exhale, and not even Kanaya's expert shooshpaps could keep him from twitching and kicking slightly. He was close,  _so_ close, Sollux could feel it in the way he clenched around him, and it didn't dawn on him until the last minute that he should probably snatch a bucket out of his sylladex unless he wanted to clean up a disgusting mess of scarlet-brightened indigo.

There was the sound of metal clanging against the ground, and Sollux jumped as he realized that Kanaya had just taken care of his problem for him.

"Get it beneath him," Kanaya ordered, moving to tug Karkat up and position him over the bucket.

Sollux pushed the receptacle forward obediently. Then he plunged his fingers back in, used his knuckles to keep constant pressure on Karkat's sweet spot while his fingertips brushed at his seedflap, and it was over. Genetic material spilled into the bucket with a sharp cry, gushing from Karkat's gene bladder and emptying in a rush of liquid that was the sickening color of indigo mixed with candy red.

What felt like hours later, the final drops of bright indigo dripped into the bucket and Karkat slumped back against his moirail with a low groan. He was completely out of it now, struggling to retain consciousness after all that had happened to him in the past hours.

Kanaya sat back. As if on cue, Sollux grabbed hold of the bucket and made sure it didn't tip over as the deadweight that had become Karkat Vantas crashed into her at full strength.

Sollux nearly gagged at the disgusting color of the material in the bucket. But he didn't have to look at it for long, because he wasted no time in tipping the offensive liquid down the drain of the ablution trap and washing away any traces of it. Soon enough he was dropping a cleaned bucket onto the ground by Kanaya and sliding to his knees beside her and her downed moirail.

"It's over," he said, even though that was obvious. "He's going to be okay, right?"

Kanaya gave a soft hum. "Yes, he should be fine physically. Mentally…well, we'll just have to wait and see." She drew Karkat closer in a gesture that was most likely subconscious. If she held him any tighter, he was going to pop.

Finally, Sollux leaned back. His phone had been blinking at him for minutes now, and when he unlocked it he found himself staring at a pesterlog in annoying blue font.

"What is it?" Kanaya asked. Her voice was soft, no doubt trying not to startle Karkat. The troll was draped across her lap, not yet unconscious but nowhere near coherency. Any loud noise would no doubt scare him to death.

Sollux squinted at the message. "They have GZ. Apparently VK caught him off guard and smashed his skull in."

"He's dead?"

"Nowhere near it. The guy's a fucking brick house, apparently, because he just sprang right the fuck back up a few minutes later. VK killed him again and tied him up, and now they're in the main room tending to the wounded while they try to figure out what to do with him."

Kanaya narrowed her eyes, sneering, "Oh, I know  _exactly_ what we should be doing with Gamzee."

"KN, if he can't die then—"

"Then I'll torture him,  _slowly,_ until he understands the extent of what he's done to  _my_  moirail. I'll make sure he never walks free again. In fact, I'll make sure he never has both his  _legs_  again."

Sollux gulped. "Uh, yeah. You do that."

"Oh, I intend to." She shuffled until Karkat was perched on her knees, cradled to her chest like a child. "But for now, I think Karkat desperately needs to be cleansed of this day."

"Couldn't agree more."

Together, the two of them dragged Karkat under the water and washed off what remained of his encounter with Gamzee.


	3. Karkat: Recover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, almost forgot to upload this! It has been a DAY, let me tell you. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the final installment! I plan to add onto this as a part of a series at some point, so look for that if you like. Until then, feedback is much appreciated!

"He's breaking the no sleeping rule," Kanaya said weakly, stroking her fingers through Karkat's hair from her position curled around him.

Sollux snorted. "To hell with the no sleeping rule. He fucking needs it."

"Still…" Kanaya soothed her palm along her moirail's cheek. "I hope he isn't having daymares."

She had a point. Karkat had already been sleeping for hours, collapsing back against Kanaya the instant she drew him into her pile of half-finished outfits and rumpled cloth. Sollux had been reluctant to join them at first—who was he to intrude upon such a pale display?—but then Kanaya had reached out a hand and pulled him down too, telling him that he needed the rest, and he hadn't resisted in the slightest. With Kanaya's express permission he stayed right where he was and let his fingertips brush over Karkat's skin whenever he dared. He'd been clothed again, slid into one of his stereotypical Cancer shirts and a pair of loose sweats, but he still looked small and vulnerable as he lay in the cage created by trolls taking up residence on either side of him.

Kanaya watched him carefully. "Sollux?"

He shook himself out of it. He couldn't afford to lie there and mope, not when Karkat's mental health was still in question. "I'm fine," he assured her quickly. "Worry about your moirail."

"Right now there is nothing more that can be done for him. You, though, seem to still house quite a bit of conflict over the situation."

"Well, of course I fucking do! KN, I had to fucking  _rape_ my best friend!"

She winced. "I don't think—"

"I forced sexual advances upon him when he didn't want it," Sollux snarled. "That's rape."

Kanaya's arms constricted around Karkat subconsciously. "You had no choice, Sollux. If you hadn't done it, then it's likely that he would have contracted an infection in his gene bladder before he was coherent enough to take care of the situation himself. He would have died."

"Tell that to him when he wakes up."

"Do you not wish for him to hate you?" Kanaya asked, cocking her head. "Were you two not destined to become engaged in a kismesissitude?"

"Fuck, KN…" Sollux trailed off, clenching and unclenching his hands rhythmically. "Don't you think that's a little too pale a question?"

"Call me your auspistice, if you think it's too conciliatory."

"But you're not my auspistice."

"You don't want to fall into a kismesissitude with Karkat anymore, isn't that right?"

Sollux hesitated.

"That's what I thought. In that case, am I not acting as an auspistice in stopping two trolls from stumbling into the black quadrant?"

"I really don't think that's how it—"

She cut him off without hesitation. "Excellent. I'm your auspistice for the time being, then, until you figure out what you want from Karkat."

He would have banged his head against the wall if he'd been close enough; Kanaya was just so  _stubborn._ But…maybe in this case it was a good thing. He didn't exactly have a moirail to go to. "Okay," he found himself saying, and it was. It was okay. It  _would_  be okay.

Kanaya reached out and clasped a hand momentarily to his shoulder. Comforting him. "You're afraid that Karkat will hate you once he wakes up and learns what happened. Is that it?"

He nodded silently. That was exactly what he was afraid of.

"Sollux…do you truly believe that Karkat will learn of the circumstances of his unfortunate incident, understand why you did what you did, and then hate you for it?"

He snorted, "Yeah, actually, I do. The guy's a certifiable lunatic when he thinks someone's wronged him, you know that. He'll beat my face in if I let him."

"You're probably right," Kanaya said with an amused smile. "However, I would argue that if you allow me to speak with him first, all that might be avoided. I'm his moirail now, whether he likes it or not, and I feel certain that he will listen to me if I tell him that you are not at fault."

"You're pretty confident about all that, KN."

Her smile widened. "Just trust me. I'm sure I can make him understand."

"If he's even in his right mind when he wakes up, you mean."

Her smile vanished in a heartbeat, and then she was drawing Karkat closer. "He'll be okay," she insisted, even as her voice shook with a note of uncertainty. "I'll make sure he doesn't self destruct. And once you figure out your own emotions, I expect you to do the same."

He thought he had his emotions pretty well figured out, but there was no way in hell he was getting into a conversation with Kanaya about it. He needed to speak with Karkat alone first, or maybe just spend some time with him while he recovered. He could test the waters, see if Karkat hated him after Kanaya explained everything, and then maybe…

Maybe what? Maybe he'd lure Karkat into a concupiscent quadrant not even a perigee after he'd been sexually assaulted by his former moirail? Maybe he'd pressure him into another relationship after his last one had ended in rape?

Maybe he really should just stay away. Karkat didn't need someone like him messing up his quadrants.

"Hey."

Sollux looked up, torn from his ever-darkening thoughts by Kanaya's gentle tone.

"It's going to be okay. I promise."

He wasn't so sure.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Karkat felt was pain.

It wasn't surprising, for some reason he couldn't quite recall. Something in the back of his think pan told him that something had happened, that the pain was normal, that it would fade with time. It was natural after what had been done to him.

What… _had_  been done to him?

Karkat tried to move, to figure out where he was hurting, and was met with a wave of sheer agony. Crying out wasn't an option with his vocal cords spasming as they were, but he thought he got his point across with how every muscle jumped at once, causing a sort of convulsive fit that shook his entire body.

Something bounced off his eardrums. A sound, a noise, something he recognized. What was it?

It sounded again, but he couldn't hear it. Instead he focused on the ache currently slamming into every bone and muscle at full force, tracing it back to its source. His wrists burned as if something had been wrapped around them with great force. His hips and sides pulsed tenderly with every breath. The back of his pan throbbed. His entire lower body was a glowing white-hot glob of singing pain and buzzing discomfort.

_Hang on a second. Why does my lower body feel like it's been fucking mangled?_

Something crackled in his ears suddenly, and he groaned. It hurt, but it was a good hurt; he could hear everything around him more clearly now.

"…kat."

He winced. The voice was so  _loud_.

"Karkat, it's okay to open your eyes. You're safe."

He was trying. He really was, straining in an attempt to get a look at what was going on around him. His memories were still fuzzy, still barely out of reach, but he had a feeling that seeing would help click everything back into place.

Cool fingertips brushed around his eyes. "Can you hear me?"

Oh, that felt  _good_. Karkat pressed towards the touch with a hum of affirmation that made his vocal cords screech with protest. His throat felt tender, and he wondered if he'd somehow managed to tear the delicate tissue.

The voice let out a relieved sigh. "Good. That's good. Just…keep trying to open your eyes, okay? I know you must want to rest, but you've been out for a long time. We're worried about you."

_We?_ Who was  _we?_ He could almost recognize that voice now, but…

"Shh…" Those fingers dipped to his cheeks and patted gently, soothing down a whine he hadn't even realized was building in the back of his throat. "I swear to you, everything is okay now. I'll protect you, and so will everyone else. We're all worried, Karkat, even Vriska—and you  _know_ how she is."

He knew. It was one of the only things he did know right now.

"Can you open your eyes yet?"

He tried again. Then again, and again, grapping with lids that seemed too heavy to lift. For a moment he was convinced that he'd just lost his eyesight, and that the troll above him was taunting him for all he was worth. But then, mercifully, he felt his lids beginning to pry themselves open with painful slowness.

There was a blurry shape above him. A blurry shape with long, thin horns and bright skin.

"Thank goodness," the shape breathed, and then Karkat couldn't see those horns anymore because the troll had just draped themselves across him like a blanket. "Karkat, it's been  _days."_

Days since what? What had happened, again?

"How are you feeling?"

He stared. Blinked once, twice, three times. Then, "…Kanaya?"

Her name had been spoken in a thick, rasping tone, but it had been her name nonetheless—and she responded to it with enthusiasm. "Yes, it's me! Oh, thank goodness you can speak! We were worried that you would have difficulty, that you might have lacerated the interior of your throat with your screaming."

"Screaming?" he rasped. "Why…?"

Kanaya's expression dropped slightly. "You don't remember?"

"There's…" He trailed off uncertainly. There was something there, something lurking in the back of his pan that told him something was wrong, something had been done to him that was inexcusable, that would break him if he ever fully remembered. "There's something."

"So you don't remember it in its entirety?"

"I…" Again, he was unable to finish the sentence. That  _something_ in the back of his pan was nudging him with increasing force, and he found himself staring for just a heartbeat into a pair of indigo eyes before the vision faded and he was left gasping for breath.

"Karkat! Karkat, what is it?"

He couldn't answer. There was a hand across his mouth, knees pressed against his hips, a pair of fingers clamped around his throat and something  _writhing, pulsing, squirming_ across his stomach before dipping lower still and—

Oh.  _Oh god._ He remembered. He remembered, and the pulse in his lower body seemed to burn all the brighter with the addition of his regained memories.

"Are you okay?" Kanaya asked again, soft and gentle. "Please, speak to me."

_I can't._ He thought that if he spoke, he would just end up throwing up all over the place.

Apparently his expression must have said it all, because Kanaya wasted no time in wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his neck. "Oh, Karkat…I'm so sorry."

He latched onto her with all his strength.  _Gamzee's the only one that has to be sorry,_ he found himself thinking, but his voice refused to obey him and spit out the venomous words.

Kanaya seemed to read his mind. "Gamzee has been taken care of," she said. "He can't be killed, but we've bound him in chains and left him in a locked, secluded room. There's no possible way he can escape—and even if he does, we have enough force to take him down this time. He won't do to anyone else what he did to you."

"What," he managed, "did we suddenly gain that would let us take him down if he escapes? Because he took us all right the fuck down last time." The words were there now, but the fire was gone. He just sounded tired. Weak.  _Beaten_.

"The humans are here now," Kanaya answered. "Rose and Dave have arrived, and they are powerful enough to stop him if things get out of hand again."

He frowned. "What…?"

Kanaya shushed him with a few fingers pressed to his lips. "The clock ran out. But when it did, Jack didn't show up: they did. We're on our way to a new game session now, and until then we should be safe."

He stared. Repeated, "What?"

"Rose can explain it to you later," Kanaya said, brushing hair out of his eyes. "For now, I want you to get your strength back. Rest, but don't go back to sleep. I'm going to fetch something for you to eat; you haven't had anything in days."

"Okay," he rasped. Then he paused. "Kanaya?"

"Yes?"

"Are…are you my moirail?"

She laughed, eyes crinkling around the edges with amusement. "Yes, Karkat, I am. That is, unless you decide that you need a break from pale romance after what happened with Gamzee."

"No!" he yelped, then flinched as he realized how pathetic he sounded. "I mean…"

"I know what you mean." She pressed her lips to his forehead gently. "I'm your moirail now, and as your moirail I'm ordering you to sit still while I run up and grab something for you to eat. Oh, and one more thing—I'm ordering you to go speak with Sollux when you get the chance."

"Sollux? What does that asshole have to do with anything?"

She cocked her head. "You don't remember?"

"Um…no?"

"Hmm, how strange. I'm surprised you don't recall anything, seeing as he was the one that helped to empty your gene bladder once Gamzee left you for dead."

Oh, okay, that was perfectly—

Wait.  _What?_

Kanaya was gone before he could ask, and he was left staring after her in shock.

 

* * *

 

After that, the recovery process began.

It was slow going, both physically and mentally, and it started when Karkat finally regained enough strength to step out of Kanaya's area of the lab for the first time in a week. Apparently he'd been out for nearly four days after Gamzee's attack. Kanaya had kept him alive by trickling water down his throat, but he was left to regain all lost nutrients through his moirail's countless attempts to shove copious amounts of food down his gullet. It took time, and a lot of begging Kanaya to stop stuffing him full of grubloaf every chance she got, but eventually he had a lot of his padding back. And eventually, he managed to leave and reenter society on the meteor.

A lot of trolls were dead. Terezi and Vriska had managed to stick around, as had Sollux and Aradia, but other than that everyone was gone. The first time Karkat had stepped into the main room of the lab and seen all the empty chairs, he'd nearly had a panic attack then and there before Kanaya got her hands on him. Gamzee was gone, was locked away, but he was still seeing evidence of him everywhere he went. Even though the bruises on his body faded with time, his blood pusher still twanged with grief every time he looked over and Nepeta wasn't needling Equius about personal hygiene, every time Tavros failed to clunk into the room with that wide, happy grin on his face, every time the horn pile remained silent without Feferi to drag people onto it. Most of his friends were gone, and coming to terms with that was a process that left him awake and sobbing late at night, Kanaya wrapped around him in an attempt to keep him sane.

Other things had changed, too.

The most obvious instance of this was the fact that the humans were now on the meteor. Just two of them, but it was enough to throw Karkat for a loop every time one of them surprised him while he was trying to do something on his husktop. He still remembered the first time he'd met the humans. He'd staggered out of his room (which he often shared with Kanaya now) late at night on a quest to find something to drink, and he'd run straight into Dave Strider.

"Heya, Karkles," Dave had said, a stupid smirk on his face, and he didn't know, he  _couldn't_ have known, otherwise he would never have backed Karkat up against the wall in what was supposed to be a teasing manner, never would have stood over him and joked about his stature, never would have triggered every bad memory Karkat had of how Gamzee had cornered him and towered over him. The encounter had ended with Karkat screaming in a ball on the ground, Dave jumping back with a horrified expression on his face, and Kanaya bursting out of her room with a terrified screech.

Dave and Rose had been sat down after that, and from then on all Karkat had seen in their eyes was crushing, all-consuming pity.

The strangest change, though, had to be Sollux.

Karkat couldn't understand it. He'd tried to approach the guy once to thank him for his help with his, ah… _situation,_ but the psionic had just stuttered awkwardly and backed away before Karkat could so much as get out a single syllable. What, did he think that Karkat was going to be  _mad_ at him for what had happened? It wasn't his fault, how could he ever think it was?

Karkat kept trying after that, and Sollux kept avoiding him. There was always that same guilty look on his face, that same hesitation to say even a word about what had occurred between them. A full perigee after the incident, even as Karkat's daymares worsened and Kanaya started looking a little ragged around the edges from keeping him calm, Sollux still refused to crack.

"What's wrong with him?" Karkat had asked Kanaya at one point, the two of them curled up in a pile in Kanaya's area of the lab. "He keeps avoiding me."

Kanaya just shook her head, rubbing her fingertips over the bridge of his nose, across his cheekbones, over his lips. There were bags under her eyes. "He feels responsible for what happened."

"But Gamzee—!"

"Not that. He believes that the removal of Gamzee's genetic material from your gene bladder worsened the state of your mental health, and that he was responsible. It's very likely that he doesn't think he's worthy of speaking to the person he 'sexually assaulted,' as he would put it."

Karkat blinked. "But he needed to help me! I couldn't do it myself!"

"Yes, but he refuses to believe that. Perhaps if you told him personally…"

"He won't fucking talk to me, though! I've tried a thousand times, but he just ducks out the first chance he gets."

"Then you'll have to  _make_  him talk to you."

"And how am I supposed to do that? The guy's a psionic, he could eat me for lunch if he wanted."

Kanaya shook her head, saying, "I don't believe he would ever use his psionics on you unless it was absolutely necessary."

"But why—?"

"Have you not noticed?"

He blanched. "Noticed what?"

"Oh, Karkat," she sighed. "Sollux is in love with you."

A pause. Then, "But he was going to be my kismesis; of course he's in love with me! Unless he's nervous that me taking on another caliginous partner will just bring back bad memories, which may be the case, but it still doesn't make much sense for him to just—"

"Karkat."

"What?"

"He pities you."

He froze. "You're joking."

"I would never joke about something like this."

"But…" He trailed off, waving his hands in an attempt to explain how ridiculous it was that Sollux, someone that had been blackflirting with him for sweeps, had flipped red on him.

"Karkat," Kanaya said again, patting his cheek. "You have to understand that Sollux was the one that found you after Gamzee's attack. He was the one that pulled you up out of a puddle of genetic material and got you into the ablution chamber, that washed the mess off you and emptied your gene bladder. You know what that entails, don't you?"

He did. He still couldn't remember a single moment of Sollux's involvement, but logically he knew that Sollux's fingers had been up his nook in the very recent past. The thought filled him with a mixture of irritation and intrigue. But what did that have to do with…?

"Sollux saw you when you were at your most vulnerable," Kanaya went on in a hushed tone. "He saw you beside yourself with agony, held you when you were sobbing and thrashing and trying to do  _anything_ that would have taken the pain away. He stuck with you then, and after watching you lose yourself right in front of him I  _know_ that he no longer sees you as an equal in both mental and physical health—and equality is what kismesissitude is built upon."

"Fuck, don't you think I  _know_  that? But still, this is fucking  _Sollux_ we're talking about. The guy drives me shithive maggots, and if he's vacillating red then…" He trailed off. Then…what? He'd known for a long time that he was on the verge of falling in love with his asshole of a best friend, though that love had always bordered more on black than red. If Sollux was going to flip on him, then was he just supposed to let him go?

"I can't tell you what you feel," Kanaya said. "What I  _can_  tell you, however, is my advice. And if you ask me, then at least  _speaking_  to Sollux will probably tell you exactly where you lie with him. Who knows? It may even help you with your daymares if you resolve something that's been bothering you."

_No,_ he wanted to say.  _Fuck no. Hell fucking no._ But then he looked up at Kanaya. Then he saw the way the bags under her eyes had been getting worse and worse lately. Then he saw how she was just slightly slumped down, visibly exhausted from the dozens of long nights she'd spent talking him down from doing something foolish in an attempt to get away from his own memories, from his own think pan.  _I owe her this,_ he realized.  _If she thinks this will help, and she's been spending so much time making sure I don't give in and just get rid of myself, and she's sacrificed her own health for the sake of mine, then…who am I to refuse her? She deserves a moirail that's trying just as hard to save himself as she is._

"Karkat?"

"Okay," he whispered.

She blinked, surprised. "You'll do it?"

"Yeah." He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Yeah, I'll talk to Captor. See what this is about."

Her shoulders slumped with relief. "Thank you, Karkat."

He murmured something about being happy to try for her, but on the inside he was dying. Vacillating with Sollux…well…

He'd be lying if he said he'd never considered it. But considering it and doing it were two different things, and his stomach lurched with anticipation of the encounter to come.

 

* * *

 

A few days later, Karkat finally managed to corner Sollux in the main room of the lab. It was late. All of the humans and all of the other trolls were either asleep or huddled in their own sections of the lab. So when Karkat headed out to the main room with the intention of fiddling around on his husktop for a while, he was momentarily shocked to see Sollux already sitting there and pounding away at the keyboard.

He hadn't seen him in days. He'd been trying everything he could think of to get in contact and keep his promise to Kanaya, but it just hadn't been working. Sollux ignored all his trollian messages and dodged him in public, and so to see him now, sitting there so openly with no one else around…

Karkat narrowed his eyes. Now was the time.

"Hey, fuckass!"

Sollux jumped as if he'd been stung by one of his precious bees. "KK?" he yelped. "What are you doing here?"

"Well I  _was_ going to mess around with coding for a while, but seeing as you're here I thought I'd finally talk to you. That is, unless you're planning on running away like a wimp again."

It was a test. It was a test, and Karkat sat back and waited for Sollux to take the bait and rise to his challenges as always, to offer him the usual blatant pitch flirtation they'd engaged in almost daily before the attack. But Sollux just stared, expression caught between pain and panic, and all he managed was a soft, "Maybe I should go."

_Holy fuck._ Karkat stared in shock.  _He vacillated. Kanaya wasn't lying. He's never looked at me like that before, with that much…_ pity _._

Sollux shuffled awkwardly at the lack of response. "Yeah, I should go. Sorry, KK, I didn't mean to—"

"Wait."

Sollux froze.

_Oh, fuck, he has it bad. Look at him._

Karkat had to force his voice to work without cracking. "Sollux. We need to talk."

The psionic winced. "Do we? Really?"

" _Yes_ , you insufferable fuckass, we do!" Karkat snapped. "Close the doors, I want privacy."

Another wince. But Sollux didn't disobey, raising one hand and using his psionics to slide the doors of the main room closed. They didn't lock, but this would have to be good enough.

"Good," Karkat sneered, "you're trapped with me until we work this right the fuck out!"

Sollux peered hopelessly towards the closed doors.

"Kanaya is asleep," Karkat told him, knowing exactly what he was hoping for. "So is everyone else that could possibly come traipsing in here at this hour. We're alone, and I deserve a fucking explanation!"

"Explanation, KK?" Sollux echoed. "What kind of explanation?"

"The kind where you tell me just what the  _fuck_ you've been doing avoiding me all this time."

If Sollux winced any harder, Karkat was pretty sure his stupid face was going to freeze into an ugly grimace. "I didn't think you'd want to see me after what I did to you."

"Is that so?"

"Y-yeah. It is."

Karkat stared. Said nothing. Waited for Sollux to crack.

It didn't take long.

"Fuck, KK!" the psionic snapped. "What do you want me to say? I had to do something awful to you; why the fuck would you want to talk to me after that? You should hate me!"

Ah, there it was—the seam. "What else is new, fuckass? I've always hated you; isn't that something you want?"

Sollux was on his feet now. When had that happened? "You sound like KN."

"What does Kanaya have to do with any of this, idiot?"

"She wanted to be our  _auspistice._ She tried to talk to me about all this already."

"Auspistice, huh? Wow, sounds like you really fucking hate me. I'm flattered."

"No!" Sollux cried out, waving his hands in front of him. "No, fuck that! I can't hate you, not anymore!"

"Can't  _hate_ me?" Karkat snarled, knowing full well where this was going and doing everything in his power to string Sollux along until he admitted what was at the core of the issue. "What the fuck do you mean you don't hate me anymore? What could possibly have happened that would have made you lose interest in me?"

Sollux stared, incredulous. His hands clenched into crackling fists at his sides. "Are you an idiot? GZ fucking raped you, KK! He held you down and took what he wanted, and I'll never look at you the same!"

Even though he knew what he was getting at, a pang of hurt tore through Karkat's chest—because that had been exactly Gamzee's intent, and it seemed that he'd achieved it. Taking a kismesis was probably going to be impossible now that he'd been so violently betrayed in that quadrant.

"How could I hate you?" Sollux went on, seeming completely oblivious to Karkat's inner turmoil. "I'm sorry, but I just can't do it anymore."

"Are you breaking up with me?" Karkat pressed.  _You're almost there, fuckass. Just a little more…_  "After I had to go through all that shit, you're telling me that Gamzee won? He fucking  _told_ me that you'd ditch me, and he was right?"

Sollux bristled with unease, but said nothing.

"I can't believe you," Karkat sneered. And  _wow,_ he found himself thinking,  _I am a great fucking actor. Someone give me a troll Oscar._ "I can't believe that you flirted with me for sweeps and then just decided to ditch me like the piece of garbage I apparently am."

Sollux jolted. "KK, no."

"Don't fucking lie to me, Captor! It's obvious what's happened—you saw what Gamzee did, how he hollowed me right the fuck out, and it disgusted you so much that you've decided you'd rather fuck a dead fish than be caught with me in the black quadrant."

Sollux wrinkled his nose, protesting, "As if I'd ever lay a claw on ED!"

"Not the fucking  _point_ , fuckass! You hate me, and not in a romantic way!"

"No I fucking don't; don't put words in my mouth!"

"Then what is it, huh? What could possibly happen that would make you ditch me as your caliginous crush, other than being overwhelmed with disgust?"

Sollux's fingers made tiny grabbing motions, as if he were longing to reach out and take Karkat by the shoulders, shake some sense into him. "You pan-addled moron, you don't fucking disgust me! It's not your fault that GZ attacked you!"

"Yeah, and it's not your fault that you had to help me! Sure, it was a shitty situation, but it was either shove your fingers up my nook or let me die, so there's no way I can hold it against you!"

The psionic's cheeks flushed an adorable honey-mustard. "That wasn't even what we were talking about!"

"Yeah, well it still seems to me like you're holding yourself responsible for something that isn't your fault—and if that's what's keeping you from hate-loving me, then I want it out of the fucking way!"

"That's not why I can't hate you anymore!"

"Then what the fuck is it? Why are you fucking  _ditching_  me?"

"Idiot, I don't  _want_  to ditch you, I just—"

"Just what? What the fuck is  _wrong_  with you?"

Sollux screeched furiously, finally giving in and curling his fingers into the collar of Karkat's shirt, shaking him viciously.  _"I fucking pity you, okay?"_

Karkat paused, letting the statement hang in the still air.  _There it is._

Almost immediately, Sollux started stuttering. "I m-mean, uh, I didn't…" He tried to back out, but Karkat wasted no time in sealing his hands around his wrists and holding him in place. "KK?" he yelped.

"Tell me why."

"What?" Sollux gasped. "Tell you  _why?_  Aren't you even a  _little_  surprised that I—?"

"Tell me why you pity me," Karkat insisted. "I have to know."

"You want to know why."

"Yeah, I fucking do!"

"Really."

" _Tell_  me, fuckass!"

For a moment, Karkat's sharp words gripped the room in a low echo. But then Sollux narrowed his eyes, his claws pricked at Karkat's wrists, and he was snarling. "You want to know why? Fucking  _fine_. I pity the shit out of you, you miserable shithead, because I  _saw_ what happened to you and it was something no troll should ever have to experience. I pity you because I saw you emptied out on the ground in front of me, calling out for help like a wiggler whimpering for its lusus. I pity you because I had to sit there and empty your gene bladder myself, and I saw the way you curled yourself around KN as if you would die if you were let go. I saw  _everything_ , KK, saw you at your weakest when a single flick of my wrist could have taken your head off, and you just sat there and trusted KN, trusted  _me_ to take care of you. You fucking  _trusted_  me, KK, not because you wanted to but because you had to, and even so I don't think I could ever bring myself to hate you again!"

Karkat blanched. He'd known Sollux had pitied him, would admit to needling him until he said it to his face, but his confession was so much more emotionally charged than he'd been expecting.  _Shit…I had no idea he was this serious._

"Are you happy?" Sollux growled, and fuck, were those tears in his eyes? "Because I've been tearing myself apart over the past perigee trying not to overwhelm you with my  _ridiculous_   _fucking feelings_ , and so to have you come in here and make me fess up is like a kick to the goddamn face!"

Karkat tightened his grip on Sollux's wrists without realizing he was doing it.

"You have no idea what this has been like," Sollux continued, voice shaking. "Staying away because I  _knew_  you'd be either disappointed or repulsed. It's torn me apart, KK! You have no idea how much sleep I've lost!"

He sucked in a sharp breath. "I…I didn't know…"

Sollux pulled away, and Karkat let him. "Fuck, just…get out of here, KK. Go back to KN and cry on her shoulder or some shit, because I can't handle you right now. I can't hate you, even if you hate me."

There were tears clinging to his lashes. There were fucking  _gorgeous_  yellow tears clinging to his lashes, and the sight of it broke something deep inside Karkat's chest.  _Oh, shit, where is this coming from? No, stop—what are you doing?_

What he was doing was breaking. Or more accurately, what his  _blood pusher_  was doing was breaking, shattering into tiny pieces as he stared at Sollux like a scared hopbeast.

"Leave!" Sollux insisted, and his eyes glowed with watery psionics.

And just like that the dam broke, and scarlet thundered into Karkat's chest.

_Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck…I can't believe this is happening to me. No, wait—you know what? That is complete hoofbeastshit. This is happening. I believe it._

"Sollux."

The psionic glared. "Are you fucking deaf?"

"You pity me."

"I just—"

"You vacillated."

"KK!"

"You vacillated, and you didn't even bother to talk to me about it?"

Sollux blanched, mouth hanging open silently.

"You're an idiot, you know that? What the fuck was this supposed to accomplish, just giving me the silent treatment without asking me how I felt? You should know me better than that, fuckass—who would I be if I failed to recognize and take advantage of a perfect romcom cliché?"

Sollux's expression twisted into one of exasperation. "KK, no."

"Oh no, I'm not done!" Karkat raised a finger as if he were lecturing a wiggler. "It's the perfect concept! Two trolls waxing black for each other undergo a harrowing event in which one is badly injured or otherwise tormented, leaving him completely at the other's mercy. The uninjured troll vacillates, but is afraid to tell the other for fear of being rejected entirely."

"KK, I swear to—"

"No, no, it's fucking perfect! I'm making a movie when we reach our new universe."

"You can't just—!"

"Oh, yes I can! But I think I'll add something."

"Oh my god."

"Let's make it more interesting, no? Let's say that one late night, the formerly injured troll confronts the one that recently vacillated in hopes of figuring out just why he's being fucking  _ignored_. The two of them have a beautiful, emotional conversation in which tears are shed and blood pushers are broken, but behold! A plot twist! In a shocking turn of events—and you'd better buckle up for this one, because you're not going to believe the Strider-esque irony—the injured troll actually pities their former hatecrush back! What a fucking shock!"

Sollux's head jerked up so fast that Karkat was afraid it would snap right off his shoulders. "Wait, what?"

"I know, right? Cinematic genius! The formerly injured troll discovers that his crush has been suffering immensely in an attempt to keep from coming on too strong and ruining everything, and as a result his poor, withered blood pusher floods with passionate pity! The two reconcile and fall into the flushed quadrant together, and everyone lives happily ever after!"

Sollux stared in wonderment. "You…you pity…?"

"I'm sorry, are you noticing a few parallels to  _our_  miserable situation? Well, imagine that! It's almost like I drew inspiration from…oh, let's say…fucking  _us!"_

"You're joking. If you're joking then you're going to tell me right the fuck now, otherwise I'm going to take your head off."

"Sollux Captor…" Karkat leaned in close, curling a hand in his flushcrush's shirt and pulling him in close until their heads were a mere inch apart. "I fucking pity you, and if you try to run away from me then  _I'm_  going to be the one taking  _your_  head off."

"KK?" Sollux squeaked.

"I did  _not_  sit around for a perigee trying to talk to you only to have you run out on me. You pity me, I pity you, end of story. You don't run, I don't leave, and everybody's happy. Fancy that!"

"Oh my god," Sollux said again, but this time it was higher, breathier. "KK, I can't believe you actually…" He trailed off, shaking his head in a stunned sort of awe. "No way. No way this happens to me."

"Oh, it's fucking happening! We pity each other, and that means that we're falling right the fuck into the flushed quadrant  _right now._  Captor, you're going to be my matesprit and you're going to  _like_  it!"

Sollux flushed. "A bit forward, aren't you, KK?"

"It's a fucking miracle, I know. After what happened with Gamzee, I think I'm done dancing around my quadrantmates."

"I, uh…wouldn't have it any other way."

"Don't stutter, you sound like Tavros."

"Hey, fuck you!"

Karkat grinned, flashing his teeth. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Sollux's eyes widened. "KK, no."

"What? What are you saying no to?"

"Just…" Sollux looked away, embarrassed. "GZ  _just_ assaulted you a perigee ago, and I'm not sure it's a good idea for the two of us to go  _that_  red  _that_  fast."

For just a moment, Karkat was tempted to snap. He was tempted to snap and claw and fight the way he always had with Sollux, the way a troll was supposed to act around his kismesis. But…Sollux wasn't going to be his kismesis anymore. He was going to be his matesprit. And that meant that he was entitled to worry. He was entitled to it all. "Never thought you'd be the responsible one in the relationship."

"You're a fucking mess half the time, KK, is it really that much of a surprise?"

"You know what? I guess it isn't."

 

* * *

 

The road to recovery, long as it may have been, ended one day when Karkat cocked back his fist and decked Dave Strider right in his dumb face.

"Aw, dude," Dave groaned, propping himself up on an elbow and rubbing at his jaw. "Uncalled for."

"You don't get to insult my matesprit and get away with it, you pan-twisted evolutionary disaster!"

Dave snickered. "Heh. You're just upset because you know I'm right. The guy's an effeminate waste of—"

The human didn't get the rest of the sentence out, though, because Karkat had just launched himself on top of him and started pounding into him with his fists.

Dave caught one punch effortlessly, then the other, holding Karkat's arms away from his body. "Careful there, Karkitty. Wouldn't want a guy to get the wrong idea, what with you flailing all over me like that."

"Fuck. You."

"You wish."

Karkat screeched a jumble of meaningless syllables, writhing and kicking and squirming in Dave's grasp. "Fuck you, Strider, you insufferable shitface! I fucking hate you, I want to rip your insides out and feed them to you while you fucking  _watch,_ unable to do anything more than scream and beg for mercy! I want to—hey!"

Dave didn't let up from where he'd flipped them over, straddling Karkat effortlessly. "Sure, little guy. Try getting out from under me first, then we'll talk."

"Oh, just fucking  _watch_  me, Strider!"

Dave sat back with an amused huff. "Watch you? Oh, baby, I could watch you for hours."

There was another flurry of incoherent screeching after that, only interrupted when the door to the main room of the lab slid open and a panicked Kanaya stepped in in search of the noise, Sollux not far behind.

"Karkat!" Kanaya exclaimed, chainsaw out and ready to go in a heartbeat.

"Woah!" Dave exclaimed. He raised a hand in a placating gesture, saying, "No need for that, Kan. The two of us were just having a pleasant conversation, isn't that right, Karkles?"

Kanaya looked to him, alarmed. "Karkat, are you okay with this?"

He knew what she was thinking. She was remembering Gamzee, remembering how he'd held him down and taken him roughly, leaving him a hollowed out shell. She was remembering how he'd sworn off blackrom forever, determined that he would never be able to take another partner in that particular quadrant. She was remembering everything he'd been saying and dealing with for the past perigees, adding up to nearly one human year.

_Are you okay with this?_

Karkat looked up at Dave, who was shooting him a taunting, questioning look.  _Well?_ he teased silently.  _Are you okay with this, or are you going to run away like a coward?_

"Karkat?"

He turned his attention back on Dave. "I can handle it, Kanaya, so stand the fuck back unless you want to be splattered with Strider-colored gore!"

Dave snorted. "As if, short stack."

Karkat flailed upwards, Dave rolled to avoid being thrashed, and the two of them sprung together in a spray of scarlet.

 

* * *

 

"So," Sollux said a few hours later, tending to Karkat's torn claw. "You have a kismesis. That's new."

Karkat grinned like an idiot. He could hardly believe it himself, but…Dave was perfect. The two had a natural rivalry like no other, stronger even than the one he'd shared with Sollux so long ago, and falling into blackrom had felt natural. There had been no flickers of Gamzee during that fight. There had been no piercing flickers of panic when Dave had gotten the better of him near the end and pinned him to the ground. There had only been them, only Karkat and Dave, only a troll and his kismesis engaging in a beautiful, bloody fight. He'd been free.

"You sure you're up for that?" Sollux asked, and Karkat realized he'd been silent for several moments too long.

"It's fine," he assured his matesprit. "I think…I'm getting better."

"Is that so?" The psionic raised a brow. "Just how better is that, exactly?"

Karkat knew what he was asking. The two of them had been matesprits for almost a full human year, and as of yet Karkat had been too damaged to get past a few makeout sessions in the middle of Sollux's pile of computer parts. But if he was ready to take on a kismesis, then…

"A lot better," Karkat settled on. "Fuck, Sollux, I think I'm actually getting there."

"How soon?" There was hunger in his voice. Well-concealed hunger, but hunger nonetheless. Although Sollux had done his best to hide his want from his matesprit over the perigees for fear of pressuring him into something he didn't want, it was obvious now just how badly he wanted to take things a step further.

"Just soon." It was all Karkat could offer him.

If Sollux wasn't happy with the answer, he didn't show it. He just went back to dabbing sterilizing liquid over Karkat's torn claw. "Okay, you should be all patched up. Just don't go scratching people for a while, okay? Let your claw heal up, unless you  _want_  to lose it."

He nodded. He wasn't really thinking about it anymore. Instead, all he was thinking about was when he'd be ready.  _Soon,_ he'd said, but what did that mean? How soon? How long would it be before he was ready to take Sollux as his own? Ready for Sollux to take him?

_Just soon,_ his think pan reaffirmed, and he had no choice but to listen.

 

* * *

 

Soon ended up being one perigee later, after Karkat had reached his limit with Dave and ended up mashing their lips together in frustration. He hadn't taken the human, or let the human take him, but that single kiss had been enough to let him know that it was time. He'd left Dave stunned on the floor of the lab and scrambled for his respiteblock to get ready.

He had a plan. He'd had a plan for perigees, knowing that he wanted to make everything special for when he finally got over his trauma enough to let him really enjoy his matesprit's presence—and that plan started with getting his block impeccably clean. He scrubbed down every surface and put everything in its proper place, and even went so far as to dismantle his pile and shove it into the closet. Afterwards he changed the sheets on the rather large sleep slat the humans had alchemized for him and made sure everything was orderly. Kanaya would have been proud, what with her constantly nagging him to get his block in order.

_Okay,_ he thought when he was done,  _what now?_  He scanned the room, searching for anything out of place while his think pan raced.  _Right—I need to grab some food and set up the DVD player._

It was the perfect date, romcom style. Dinner, a movie, and then the grand finale in which Karkat finally got to prove that he could still handle having concupiscent partners. To be fair, there were certain things that weren't exactly romcom perfect. The fact that they were on a meteor hurling through space at breakneck speed, for example, was a good one. They didn't exactly have the most comfortable living quarters, and the food wasn't going to be the best in paradox space, but he was going to do the best he could. If he weren't so afraid of sounding cheesy, he'd say that having each other for company was enough.

He looked at the clock.  _It's not too far away from when we'd normal be settling in for the evening. I should find Sollux and rope him into this before it's too late._

He slipped into the hall in search of his missing matesprit.

 

* * *

 

Sollux was in the lab when Karkat found him, right where he was supposed to be. He was in the same chair as always and typing away furiously, code flashing across his screen, legs drawn up so that his knees were pressed to his chest. He looked tense.

"Captor," Karkat growled. Then, when Sollux didn't so much as glance at him, he said it again. " _Captor_."

The psionic groaned. "KK, I'm trying to figure out the mistake in this code. Give me a few minutes?"

Karkat sucked in a deep breath to calm his nerves.  _You can do this. Be cool. Be suave. Channel Dave._ "Get the fuck off that computer, you half-panned shitface! I've got something for you!"

…Or he could channel  _himself,_ which was considerably easier but a thousand times rougher around the edges. Fair enough.

He was rewarded for his harsh language by Sollux raising his head, glancing over to him with raised brows. "You, the nubby-horned, shouty asshole of a troll, got something for your poor abused matesprit? Blasphemy."

"Shut the fuck up!" Karkat shrieked, bristling. "Unless you're planning on flipping back on me, which would be bad seeing as I already have a—" Something bounced off one of his horns, and his voice died in his throat. "Was that a fucking computer key?"

"I needed to stop you from being an idiot somehow, didn't I?" Sollux scoffed. "KK, you pitiful piece of shit, the day I flip black on you is the day I shove my head into a beehive and hand myself over to psionic burnout. So stop being insecure and start telling me what you're doing here!"

He'd never say a word about it, but his chest flooded with warmth when Sollux's reassurances hit his ears. He still questioned himself every now and again, wondering when his shouty personality would cross the line from 'adorable' to unbearable, and he'd be dumped flat on his ass. There was already a hint of black romance in their matespritship, just a trace of darker emotion that would probably  _always_ be there just because that's how they'd grown up, teasing and needling each other, and Karkat couldn't help but fear that one day that hint of pitch would swallow them whole and send them straight back to square one. It hadn't happened so far, though, and it had been well over one human year since they'd fallen into the red quadrant together. Karkat hoped dearly that it would never happen, that maybe their antagonistic behavior was just a facet of their very beings, a crutch to lean on in moments where they couldn't bring themselves to be emotionally mature. Maybe this was just them, and if it was then that was okay. It was okay to wear masks, at least for now, and at least while they were out of the safety of their rooms.

"KK?" Sollux pressed, and now he was beginning to look a little concerned. He saved where he was in his programing and turned off his computer in favor of standing and making his way over to his matesprit. "Hey, are you okay?"

"What?" Karkat squeaked. "I mean, yeah, yeah, I'm fine! I just, uh…"  _Fuck, could I be less smooth? Pull it together, Vantas, you're trying to seduce someone!_ "I have a surprise for you."

"A surprise? From you? No way." Sollux cuffed him over the ear affectionately. "So what is it, a kick in the face? That seems about your style."

"Maybe if you'd actually come with me instead of spewing all over that fucking waste of space you call a computer, you'd find out!"

One of Sollux's brows arched delicately, and he asked, "Is it that important?"

"Captor." Karkat leaned in close and curled his fingers into his matesprit's shirt, right over the Gemini symbol, drawing him close. "Believe me when I tell you that this is the  _most_  fucking important thing you'll do this sweep." His tongue darted out to wet his lips. "Understand?"

Something flickered in Sollux's eyes, a spark of  _almost_ realization, and he swallowed so hard that Karkat could visibly trace the movement in his throat. "Uh, sure, KK. So what are you going to—?"

Karkat didn't let him answer. He just reached out and grabbed him, a hand sealed delicately around his wrist, and tugged him off toward his respiteblock.

The journey lasted the same amount of time as usual, of course, but to Karkat it felt like sweeps. He dragged his matesprit behind him, blood pusher pounding with the knowledge of what he was going to do, what  _Sollux_  was going to do, and tried not to show his nervousness with the embarrassing chirrs of anticipation that were working to escape his throat.

Sollux stayed quiet, thank god, and let himself be pulled along. He hadn't realized what was going on just yet, but it was obvious that he could sense that this was somehow  _important,_ that he should be careful with what he said and how he acted. He stayed quiet the whole journey without complaint.

By the time Karkat got back to his respiteblock, he was nearly hyperventilating.  _Calm down,_ he told himself firmly.  _You're just having an unassuming dinner with your matesprit, there's no need to get worked up. If you're too pressured, just back right the fuck out and Sollux will be fine with it._

But…would he be? Sollux had obviously been growing frustrated lately. If Karkat couldn't put out, then what use was he as a matesprit?

_No, don't think like that! He's told you a thousand times that he pities you, that he's willing to wait._

_Oh yeah? Then why has he looked so disgruntled the past few times you've had to break things off before he could get further than grinding down on you like a freshly pupated wiggler?_

_He pities me!_

_For how much longer, if you can't do what you're supposed to do?_

"KK?"

Karkat jerked his head up, eyes wide. He'd been so lost in thought that he'd barely heard his matesprit calling for him, had barely felt his hands coming to rest against his shoulders.

"KK," Sollux repeated, looking concerned. "What's wrong? What is this about?"

He swallowed hard. "Nothing. Just follow me."

"That's really not all that convincing, you know!"

"Just fucking follow me!"

Sollux tried to say something else, but Karkat just pushed open the door to his respiteblock and shoved him inside with a huff.

There was a moment of silence. Then, "Oh.  _Oh."_

Karkat gingerly stepped into the block and closed the door behind him. He'd lowered the lights in the room just slightly, had made sure that the table was perfectly set to share a meal with his matesprit before he'd left to find him, and now it was a beautiful sight. He'd done well.

"You…" Sollux rasped, turning to look at him, "you did all this?"

"I just cleaned my block up a little and set the table," he grumbled in an attempt to make it seem like it wasn't a big deal. "And I had to figure out how to alchemize some decent food, but it didn't take that long." It had taken hours. "I figured out the code for some pretty decent grubghetti."

Sollux's expression softened. His eyes shone with pity. "Oh, KK…"

Fuck. Fuuuuuuck. That expression was going to do him in before they even sat down to eat. "I have the  _best_  fucking date planned, so no backing out! We're going to sit there and eat dinner like a functional flushed couple, and then we're going to watch a movie together and it's going to be  _perfect."_

"A romcom?" Sollux asked teasingly.

"Only the finest cinematic masterpiece known to trollkind!"

"So a romcom."

"Of course it's a fucking romcom!"

The psionic chuckled, low and genuine. "You're too much, KK." He pulled him down into a fierce hug. He was so goddamn  _careful,_ not kissing him unless he knew it was welcome, and it made something inside Karkat twang with warmth. "Come on, why don't we eat now?"

He didn't have much of a say in the matter. Sollux was already plunking him down at the table and moving to the thermal hull, where Karkat used the warming half of the appliance to keep their meal from getting cold. "Oh my god," Sollux said when he saw the dish waiting in the hull. "You got the code for something that looks remotely edible. KK, how long did this take you?"

"Not that long," Karkat lied. "Just get it out here sit down!"

Sollux obeyed with a pleased purr. He set down the pot Karkat had managed to alchemize and reached for the serving spoon. "Good, now let's—"

"You're missing something, dumbass."

The psionic frowned. "What?"

"Check on top of the hull."

Karkat watched with a sort of silent, buzzing anticipation as Sollux stood on his toes and sent a flicker of psionic energy out to grab onto the thing he'd shoved on top of the thermal hull. He saw everything. He saw the way Sollux frowned at it once it was within sight, then smirked as he realized just what he was holding. He saw the mischievous glint in his mismatched eyes.

"KK," Sollux chuckled, "how the fuck did you get your hands on soporific?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" he snapped, but he was secretly pleased that he'd managed to get such a positive reaction. He'd half expected Sollux to have no interest, seeing what the human equivalent was currently doing to Rose. "Get over here and pour us a couple of glasses, idiot."

Sollux didn't waste a moment. He plopped himself down in the chair across from Karkat and uncorked the bottle with an amused snort, reaching over and grabbing first Karkat's glass, then his own to fill with the rich purple liquid. "Leave it to you to serve grubghetti with a soporific, KK."

"Is there a problem with that, fuckass? I don't see  _you_ cooking up a romantic dinner for  _your_  matesprit."

"Oh, I'm sure I'll have my chance sooner or later. For now, I intend to enjoy this  _thoroughly."_

That  _smirk._ Had Sollux guessed what the purpose of all this was? Did he already know that Karkat was planning on making a move?

Karkat watched, only slightly tense, as his matesprit took a bite, chewed, swallowed, then offered him a pleased grin. "It's actually edible. Good going, KK."

A relieved breath left him a whoosh, and he managed to scoop a little onto his own plate. He wasn't going to be able to eat much; he was too nervous. He distracted himself by going for his drink and taking a sip. It was good. Too good. If he wasn't careful, he'd end up shitfaced in no time.

"So," Sollux said in between bites, "is there a reason you prepared this lovely date for the two of us? Something you want, perhaps?"

"What?" Karkat spluttered. "No! I don't want anything; I just figured I'd be nice and make something for you because you…" He scrambled to think up an excuse. "…You always put up with my bullshit."

He was met with a pair of narrowed eyes. "That doesn't sound like you."

Karkat laughed a little too loudly. "What?" His voice cracked. "I can't do something nice for my matesprit every once and a while?"

"I guess you can, but it's not exactly within the confines of your character."

"My  _character?_ " Karkat echoed. "And I suppose you know all about that, don't you?"

Sollux flashed him a smirk full of too many teeth. It would have been seductive if not for the food crammed into his mouth. "Oh, KK, I know  _everything_ about you."

"Don't talk with your mouth full, fuckass!"

He swallowed hard. "Seriously though—why did you do this? I can tell there's something on your pan; you've been fidgeting all evening."

Fuck, and he'd thought he was being  _so_  inconspicuous. "Just eat your dinner, shithead."

"Eat yours," Sollux countered.

Karkat shoved a bite into his mouth imploringly. He could barely taste it, though, not with his stomach flipping so distractingly. He took a gulp of soporific to distract himself.

The entire time, Sollux did nothing but watch him suspiciously. Oh yeah, he knew something was up. "KK, come on. You look like you're about to pass out you're so nervous."

"I'm completely fucking calm!"

"Don't lie to your matesprit; it's rude!"

"Don't push me, then!"

"It's my  _job_  to push you! If you're hiding something that's bothering you, am I supposed to just let it go?"

Karkat blanched. No. No, he wasn't—and Sollux knew it as well as he did. He was just doing his job in pestering him. Just being a good matesprit.

"Now are you actually going to let me know what's going on, or do I have to guess?"

Karkat took another swig of his drink. "Fine. You eat, I talk."

Sollux immediately stuffed another bite into his mouth.

"Right…" Karkat put his cup down and soothed his palms over his legs over and over, rumpling and smoothing the material repeatedly. "Sollux, we've been matesprits for over one human year."

Sollux cocked his head. "Yeah, and?"

"And, um…" He rubbed harder at his thighs. "And we haven't really, uh, done…things? Together."

"Done things together."

"Yeah." He eyed Sollux from beneath a curtain of hair, waiting for him to catch on.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

…Or he wasn't going to catch on, and Karkat was going to have to be even more forward. Goddamnit. "We haven't done things!"

"We've done plenty of things. You've helped me code, we've made out, we've had a couple of really good jams…what else were we supposed to be doing?"

Dear god, there was no way he was this dumb. Had he just completely blocked out the thought that Karkat would some day be ready to pail him? Had he resigned himself to celibacy, despite his obvious frustration with the situation?

"…KK?"

"What I mean is," he started again, talking right over his matesprit, "is that there are certain, ah,  _flushed_ responsibilities that we have been neglecting for a long time because I was feeling…let's say,  _insecure."_  The word tasted bitter on his tongue.

Still, though, Sollux just stared. He'd somehow managed to work his way through half a plate of food during the conversation, and Karkat didn't remember ever seeing him chew. When had he…?

"KK," Sollux said solemnly, interrupting his thoughts. "I have absolutely no idea what you're on about."

"Flushed responsibility!" Karkat tried again. "Things that matesprits are supposed to do together!"

"We've done all that red shit, dude. We've had flushed jams and spent copious amounts of time together. We've kissed a whole bunch in a way that was anything but pale. I don't know what else we're supposed to be doing."

Karkat stared. "No way."

"No way what?"

"No way you're this much of an idiot."

"Idiot?" Sollux protested, baring his teeth. "Who're you calling an idiot when you're rambling on about  _flushed responsibilities?"_

" _You!_  I'm calling  _you_  an idiot, fuckass, because it's so fucking obvious what I'm talking about that you  _have_  to be joking about not getting it!"

Sollux reached for his glass of soporific and drained it in one long pull. "Be more forward. I'm not getting it."

"You want forward? Fucking  _fine_. Sollux Captor, idiot of idiots, I'm trying to tell you that I want you to pail me!"

The words hung heavy in the empty air, Sollux staring with wide eyes, Karkat's chest heaving as he tried to come to terms with the fact that  _he'd just said that out loud._

Then, "No. Fucking. Way."

"No? What the fuck do you mean,  _no?"_

Sollux bristled with alarm. "No, no, I didn't mean  _no_ —I meant  _holy shit, I can't believe this is happening to me right now."_

A little of the hurt eased in Karkat's chest. "That so?"

"Yeah, it is! How else am I supposed to react to this, KK? I've been waiting for you to be ready for what feels like  _sweeps_ , and now…" He trailed off with a dopey grin. "Fuck. Are you sure?"

Karkat was pretty sure that every drop of blood in his body was currently rushing to his face, pumping his cheeks with a horridly scarlet hue that would have gotten him culled back on Alternia. "Yes," he managed, "I'm completely sure. I have been planning this for  _perigees,_ and I wouldn't have gone through all the trouble of setting it up if I wasn't one hundred percent certain that I wanted to have  _your_  mutant junk all over  _my_  mutant junk."

Sollux just stared in shock.

"Captor."

Staaaaaaare.

"Come in, Captor. Are you firing on all cylinders, or has the suggestion that we have sex completely fried the mush you call thinkmatter?"

Sollux started abruptly. Coughed. "Uh, no, I just…"

"Just  _what_ , you bifurcated freakshow?"

He swallowed hard. "Can we skip the movie?"

Karkat blinked, surprised, and gave his matesprit a good once-over. He took in the flushed tone of his cheeks, the anticipatory glaze over his eyes, the way his claws were digging little holes into the dark fabric of his pants. Oh…he  _wanted_ him. Badly.

Sollux gave a little whine, confirming his suspicions.

"You know what?" Karkat said suddenly. "That sounds like the best idea you've had all perigee."

"Oh, thank god," Sollux breathed. Then he hesitated, looking up and shooting Karkat a look that went straight to his bulge. "…Skip the rest of dinner too?"

"Fuck you, I worked hard to prepare that!"

"Yeah, but we could be working hard together at  _so many other things_  right now."

He paused. "Good point."

Apparently that was all the invitation Sollux needed, because the next moment the psionic was shoving aside what remained of their meal and practically  _flying_ over the table to get his grubby claws all over him. Karkat barely had a moment to blink before his chair was being shoved out slightly to accommodate the warm lapful of wiggling troll he'd just been served. Sollux was just slightly below his body temperature, just a tad cooler than him in all regards, and just that slight difference was enough to send his pan reeling once Sollux got his lips sealed against him and kissed him for all he was worth.

This. This was something he was familiar with. They'd kissed a thousand times before like this, spent so much time lip-locked that Karkat could pick out every sensitive place on his matesprit's body (provided it was above the belt) and play him like one of the humans' musical devices. Unfortunately (fortunately) that meant that Sollux could do the same to him—and the instant the psionic got his hands under his shirt and thumbed at his grubscars, tongue sliding along his languidly, he was lost.

Sollux chuckled against his lips when he felt the full-body shudder that ran through him. "Eager, KK?"

"Fuck— _oh—_ fuck you!"

"Soon, soon," Sollux murmured, stroking up and down his sides over and over in a light, rhythmic flutters that left Karkat gasping. It was a dull pleasure, familiar and warm and coiling lazily in his core, building only slightly with every brush of his matesprit's fingers, and it made his entire lower body pulse with hazy delight. His bulge was hinting at the beginnings of coming unsheathed.

Karkat bared his teeth when he heard Sollux laugh again. The idiotic psionic had leaned back just to watch him squirm, and Karkat found himself snarling at the utter unfairness of the situation. If Sollux was going to touch him, he was going to touch him  _back_.

"Oh, fuck, KK!"

Sollux tried to say more, but Karkat already had him pressed into a harsh kiss as he continued to copy the exact motions of his matesprit's hands on his grubscars.

"KK—!"

"That's right," Karkat growled against his matesprit's lips. "Come undone, you pitiful wreck."

" _I'm_  the pitiful wreck here?" Sollux laughed yet again, but this time it was high and rasping. He was flustered. "Come on, you're the one grinding up into me like a meowbeast in heat."

Karkat's hips stuttered in their soft little jerking motions. He hadn't even realized he was doing it, pressing up at Sollux as the throb in his nook and the pulsing in his bulge grew harder and harder to ignore. This, too, he had felt far too often in the past perigees. He'd gotten this far a few times with Sollux, once with Dave, and every time he'd had to pull away before he could get his pants off.

_Not tonight._

Karkat mewled in surprise as he felt Sollux tugging at the hem of his shirt.

Sollux quirked a brow at him. "Is this okay?"

He was so caring. So  _considerate._ "Yes," Karkat managed, "it's okay. Take it off."

Sollux wasted no time. He hooked his fingers under Karkat's shirt and pulled up, tugging it over his arms and casting it off to fall on some random part of the floor. The instant the cloth barrier was gone he fell upon him with renewed eagerness, tracing his lips across the flesh he could reach while still trapped between Karkat and the table. Teeth plucked delicately at gray skin and it  _burned,_ burned with little prickles of blazing fire that licked up Karkat's spine and tickled the edges of his think pan with something that felt suspiciously like pleasure. Oh, that was  _good._

"Too much?" Sollux murmured in between little nips and sucks, and Karkat realized that his hands had abandoned their quest to fondle Sollux into submission in favor of flopping uselessly at his sides.

"No, no, don't stop!" he gasped in return. He flailed awkwardly at his matesprit's chest and just managed to snag a claw in the top of Sollux's annoying shirt.  _Oh, good,_ he thought, because that was exactly what he needed in order to tear the thing off of him and leave him bare-chested and waiting.

Sollux let out a breathy gasp when Karkat raked his claws down his back with just enough pressure to leave yellowish welts. " _Shit—_ KK, I need—!"

He knew exactly what he needed; he could feel it writhing against his stomach from beneath the cloth of his matesprit's pants. "Move this to the sleep slat?" Karkat asked breathlessly.

Sollux shot a glance over his shoulder to where said sleep slat sat nestled against the far wall. "You cheeky little shit, that's why you changed the sheets? So we could fuck?"

"Guilty as charged." Karkat smirked up at him, even though the nervousness starting to build in his stomach was making it difficult to focus. He  _really_  didn't want to mess this up.

Sollux pretended to swoon, draping himself over his matesprit's form and teasing, "How could I resist such charm? Come on, you disaster, I'm too pent-up to wait much longer."

And of  _course_ he was, because he didn't have a concupiscent partner that hadn't spent the past human year shell-shocked by their former moirail's vicious attack. The thought of what waiting had done to Sollux just made Karkat's gut twist tighter with guilt.  _No, no, no! You need to relax. Enjoy this. Sollux deserves you, so you're going to give yourself over to him._

Sollux climbed off his lap suddenly and scooped him up into his arms. "I've got you," he soothed when he heard Karkat's alarmed yelp. "Relax, KK, I won't let you fall."

He wouldn't. He would never let him fall, and Karkat relaxed into his matesprit's arms for the short journey between the table and the sleep slat. He was settled back onto the slat with almost painful caution.

"Okay?" Sollux asked again as he settled over him, knees on either side of his waist, arms caging him in as his head dipped to press soft, lingering kisses all over his chest.

"Okay," Karkat reassured him through the nervousness settling in his stomach. It would be okay. He would  _make_  it okay.

Sollux hummed. "Good. If anything is too much, tell me and I'll back off."

Nothing was going to be too much. They'd waited too long for Karkat's fear to get the best of him.

It turned out that he needn't have worried about fear stopping him in his tracks, for the instant Sollux's lips sealed over one of his grubscars he was lost to the swarming pleasure of it all, the dull pulse that grasped his whole body. His bulge was fully out now without him ever having realized it was unsheathing, and he felt it writhing along the inside of his pants a mere inch from where Sollux's was coiled. He wanted it, and he was afraid of it.

Sollux mouthed at his sides. "Mmm, KK…let me take your pants off."

His blood pusher leapt with anticipation. He didn't even bother with a verbal response this time, just grabbed Sollux's hands and moved them to his waist. Claws plucked at the button, drew down the zipper, and then  _there they went,_ crumpling into a heap on the ground beside the sleep slat. So  _fast._ Well, at least he still had his boxers.

Sollux was babbling, he realized. A chorus of  _good_ and  _yes_ and  _please_ that went on and on, filling the room and puffing out against Karkat's skin as the psionic just dragged his lips along every part of his body he could reach. There were thumbs at his grubscars again, teasing and stoking a dull flame within him, and  _oh god_ his bulge was going to wriggle straight out the top of his boxers at any moment. It was going to escape, and Sollux was going to laugh at how aroused and terrified he was, and it was going to be just like before when Gamzee had—

_No!_

Karkat clutched at Sollux like a lifeline. Shaking fingers went for his horns, just brushed over them lightly to memorize the shape and remind himself that this was  _not_ the troll that had betrayed him so terribly. This was his matesprit. He wasn't going to hurt him.

Sollux hadn't even noticed his momentary lapse. He was too lost in mapping out Karkat's legs up to where his undergarments hid them from view, moving his attention up to his hips and then his chest and then out to his arms, finishing his exploration with a searing kiss to his slack lips. "KK, your boxers."

His entire body seemed to clench with tension.  _Too soon!_  "Your pants first, idiot. I'm not stripping naked while you sit there like a moron in half your clothing."

"Eheh, fair enough." Sollux sat back and stripped himself of his pants without a second thought. Karkat envied that careless grace, the ability to just strip himself down without suffering spikes of debilitating fear. He missed it. "There, happy? Want me to go first?"

He gave a tiny nod.  _Fast. It's happening so fast._

Sollux's lips curved in a reassuring grin. "It's okay. I've got you." He hooked his clawtips into the top of his undergarments and tugged them down just an inch. Then he looked up, gaze questioning.

Karkat gave a soundless whine of approval. It was slightly choked, but Sollux didn't seem to take notice.

His matesprit's gaze softened. The claws grasping at the hem of his boxers shifted, tightened their grip, and then Sollux was drawing them down his legs and tossing them down to join his discarded pants, and  _holy fuck_ he was naked. His mustard-yellow bulge curled freely in search of contact. "See, KK?" he whispered. "It's fine. No one is hurting you."

So maybe he  _had_ picked up on a little of his panic. "I know," he forced out. He slid his arms up and soothed them down his matesprit's arms. Reassuring himself that he was still the same person he'd been a few minutes ago.

Sollux squeezed his fingers momentarily. "You can touch, if you want to."

_Touch._ That was something he could handle right now, so long as he was on the giving end. He dipped his eyes to where his matesprit's bulge was coiling in on itself, to where he could see a slight tinge of yellow where the opening of his nook began. He gulped.  _You can do this, fuckass. He pities the shit out of you; you won't scare him off._ That in mind, he reached out and offered his hand to Sollux's searching bulge, hissing softly when he felt the way the slick tentacle curled around his fingers and squeezed gently. He squeezed back in wonderment, and Sollux  _moaned._ Sollux moaned, and  _he'd_  caused it.

"Yeah," the psionic groaned. "Just like that…"

Karkat clenched and unclenched his fingers rhythmically, ran his fingertips down Sollux's bulge, squeezed in an attempt to mimic what the inside of a troll's nook would feel like when it rippled around him. He must have been damn good at it, too, because the next moment he was murmuring in surprise from the midst of a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss, his own panting breaths barely concealing the pleasured huffs coming from his matesprit.

"KK, my— _oh."_

Karkat slid a finger along his nook before he could fully get the request out. Sollux was already plenty slick, opening up beautifully beneath his ministrations and allowing that singular digit to slip inside of him without any resistance—but not resisting didn't mean not  _moaning_ , low and deep from the bottom of his throat in a tone rich with buzzing harmonics. The psionic nearly collapsed atop him as he slid deeper.

"Good?" Karkat asked, just to make sure, because he was determined to be just as considerate as his partner.

"Fuck,  _so_  good, you have  _no idea_ what this feels like… _"_

Karkat stiffened like a board about a heartbeat before Sollux caught his mistake.

"Oh, fuck," the psionic groaned, leaning down and peppering light kisses across Karkat's face. "Shit, I didn't mean…KK, you know I don't…"

He swallowed hard. Pulled himself together. "It's okay," he said, even though it really wasn't. The comment had his pan spinning with unpleasant memories of the last time he'd felt exactly what Sollux was feeling now, but in a different shade of fear. "Sorry, just…let's keep going."

"Are you sure you want…?"

Karkat slid in a second finger to join the first, and Sollux's protests were cut off in a fit of pleasured panting. He found the little nub he was looking for, brushed his fingers in light circles along it, and Sollux melted down until he was acting as a living blanket over his front. His momentary lapse was forgotten.

"KK," Sollux rasped once he'd gotten his breath back. "I want to see you. Is that okay?"

For just a moment, there was panic. Hot and sharp, it flashed through his abdomen and reminded himself of all the  _bad_  that had happened the last time he'd been this bare in front of someone he trusted.

But no. This was Sollux.

He forced himself to nod. "I trust you."

"I know," was the soft response, Sollux's eyes glowing with adoration. "I'll never hurt you."

Karkat clenched his teeth. Sollux's fingers slid between his skin and his waistband.

Then, in one, smooth tug, Karkat's boxers were slid off his legs and cast to the ground below.

The first thing he felt was shock. His bulge sprang forth and waved as if in greeting, snaking this way and that in search of something to rub against, and his nook pulsed with searching heat.  _I'm completely naked,_ he realized, and the thought sent a jolt of something dangerously close to panic thrilling through him.

There were hands on his hips. Someone had grabbed his hips, was rubbing circular patterns into his skin, was prickling along his sides with his nails and scraping up to his throat.

_Oh god._

Hands on his horns. Squeezing rhythmically and sending his body into the throes of submission. Biting force at his wrists, holding him immobile. Rough, cold fingers at his nook. Something pushing inside brutally, unforgivingly.

"…kat! Karkat, oh god, are you okay? Please tell me you're not having a panic attack or some shit, because I am  _not_  equipped to handle that!"

Karkat's hands shot up to find Sollux's horns. There was a surprised moan, he thought, but that wasn't as important as the way he was mapping out the candy-corn protrusions with his fingers.  _Four horns,_ he recognized.  _Two on each side, two large two small, all way too short to belong to a highblood. Sollux Captor. My matesprit. Not Gamzee._

"Karkat, KK, come on—answer me!"

He blinked once, twice, and the panic began to recede. Four horns. Not two. Four. It wasn't Gamzee. It  _wasn't._

Sollux pressed the length of his body up against him. "Shit, KK,  _please_ say something. If I broke you, then I don't know what I'll do."

Karkat swallowed. Choked momentarily on his own distress. Then, "I-I'm fine."

"Like hell you're fine! You spaced out and started fucking keening in terror!"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he repeated, more trying to convince himself than Sollux. "Fuck, just…just ignore me, keep going."

"What?" Sollux yelped. "What the fuck, KK, that isn't how this works! I don't get to just  _ignore_ my matesprit when he's in pain!"

"Well I'm not waiting any longer to do this so I'd better get over it! I've been holding you back for too long, and—"

Sollux's eyes crackled with psionic energy, expression a mix of frustration and gut-wrenching pity. "Is that what this is about? KK, you idiot, I'm fine with waiting if you're not ready for this! Fuck, just  _this_  much has been amazing, don't feel like you have to put out because of me! Do I really seem like the kind of asshole that would ditch you because you were fucking  _raped_  and forced to work through the trauma?"

Karkat blanched. When it was said like that…

"I'm never going to do that to you," the psionic whispered, dipping down to press his forehead against Karkat's collarbone. " _Tell_  me if you're not ready and I'll back off. KK, if you make yourself go through with this when you're not ready it really  _will_ be no different than what happened with GZ."

Something twisted low and sharp in his gut. "But…I  _want_  this." He did. He really did. Even though fear was coiling tight in his chest, even though his think pan was flickering with hints of indigo, he desperately wanted to have his matesprit in the way he deserved. "Sollux,  _please."_

Sollux eyed him suspiciously. "I don't believe you."

"Oh my god, you fucking wreck, I want you! I don't want to stop!"

"Then tell me what you need so I don't hurt you!"

A low growl started up in Karkat's throat. His bulge slid a few inches back into its sheathe. "Just go a little slower!"

A pause. Then Sollux blinked, saying, "Slower? That's all?"

"Slower, and…" He sucked in a deep, slow breath. Exhaled shakily. "I don't know…I feel like I don't have any control. It reminds me of…of  _that."_

"Hmm…" Sollux sat back and cocked his head thoughtfully to one side. "Okay then, how about this?"

"How about—hey!" Karkat yelped as Sollux closed his hands over his hips and rolled, setting the candy-blooded troll atop him with ease. He suddenly found himself straddling his matesprit, hands braced on either side of his head, bulge twisting dangerously close to the psionic's nook. The mere suggestion of being on top had already coaxed him back out to full length.

Okay. This was different, this was something he hadn't considered, but this was… _good_. This was something he could handle.

"KK?"

He jolted, realizing Sollux was still waiting for an answer. "Yeah," he managed, "yeah, this is good, this is okay."

Sollux hummed. "Okay. Go at your own pace, KK."

He did. He held himself there, hovering over Sollux, and put himself to work as best as he knew how.

"Oh," Sollux gasped when he felt Karkat's fingers sliding along the entrance to his nook. "Shit…"

It was a good reaction, and Karkat felt some of his fear drain away as he slid a finger up into Sollux's nook and pushed it along the inner walls searchingly. He was met with a rasping moan, with teeth snapping into his shoulder, with psionic energy crackling along his spine, but none of it mattered. All that mattered was pushing deeper, getting more and more of that intoxicating feeling of being  _close_ to his matesprit, a feeling he hadn't been able to appreciate fully until he was suddenly freed of the soul-rending fear that had been clinging to the back of his pan since his incident with Gamzee. This was what it was supposed to feel like. He was supposed to feel that sharp, surging warmth in his gut when he moved his fingers just right and managed to draw a hoarse cry from Sollux's lips. He was supposed to feel  _good._

_Shit,_ he thought.  _If I'd known that putting myself on top was going to help this much, I would have done it a long time ago. So much for slowing down._

Sollux choked on a moan. "KK," he begged, "Karkat, please,  _fuck—"_

He didn't get any further than that, though, because Karkat had just slid his fingers free of that gripping warmth and was in the process of replacing it with his bulge. He kept a firm hold of himself to make sure that he didn't overwhelm his matesprit, didn't slide in fully before he was ready—but apparently he needn't have worried, because Sollux just whined and begged and twisted beneath him beautifully, a sheen of yellowish sweat covering his rough gray skin. He took Karkat up to the sheathe without faltering.

" _Captor_ ," Karkat breathed out in pleasured shock. Sollux's interior was just a little colder than his bulge; the soothing coolness was almost maddening. He struggled to hold himself still until he was given permission to lash the way his body was urging him to.

"You okay?" Sollux managed, and Karkat almost laughed at the irony of his matesprit asking him if  _he_  was okay while he was buried sheathe-deep inside him. "KK, you're not freaking out, are you?"

He shook his head hazily against Sollux's shoulder, where his face had dipped down to press firm against his flesh. "M'good, Sol,  _so_  good."

The psionic chuckled. Canted his hips up slightly. "So what are you waiting for, an invitation?"

Well, that was  _exactly_  what he was waiting for—but if Sollux was really just going to let him go at his own pace, then he had nothing to lose.

He flicked the tip of his bulge experimentally.

Sollux let out a tiny, satisfied huff. "Yeah, KK, just like that."

He did it again. Then, when Sollux didn't flip his shit and order him to stop, he tried it again with more force. Again, this time picking a different angle and rolling the entirety of his bulge along his matesprit's interior. And  _oh_ , that felt good. It felt good, better than anything he'd experienced in a long time. Gamzee was the furthest thing from his mind in that instant, and the thought of the juggalo and all the trauma he'd caused only grew further and further away when Sollux reached up for him and clung like a newly-hatched wiggler, pressing light kisses all over his face in a fit of pleasure.

_This is good,_ he realized as Sollux's nook rippled around his bulge, and the realization shocked him. Something deep in his think pan had been whispering venom into his ear for months, had been telling him that sex could never feel good, that Gamzee had broken him, and now that part of him had fallen silent in the face of Sollux raking his claws lightly down his back and latching onto his lips and practically sucking his soul out of his body.  _It's good._

"Fuck, KK," Sollux moaned. "Right there, do that again!"

Karkat rolled his bulge along the area indicated, and was momentarily surprised to feel that same little nub that he knew existed in his own nook. Sollux clenched around him with every brush to that little bundle of nerves, and Karkat shuddered at the resulting spikes of pleasure that shot up his bulge to stoke the searing pleasure beginning to build in his abdomen. He'd felt this before, yes, but never this strong and never this  _right,_ and the nausea he'd come to expect with such things was nowhere to be found.

Then he felt something squirming along his stomach, dipping down and brushing along the base of his sheathe and lapping around his nook, and he stiffened like a board.

Sollux went rigid beneath him. "Shit, sorry KK—I didn't mean to scare you, that was totally instinctual." The pressure at his nook disappeared, and Sollux's bulge came back into view.

Karkat swallowed hard. "No, it's…it's fine."

His matesprit raised a brow. "Can I trust you to tell me the truth on this, or are you going to lie like before?"

Karkat bared his teeth, bulge whipping inside of Sollux with furious pressure and drawing out a strangled moan. "Trust me to punch you if it's too much."

Sollux eyed him, shaking his head just slightly and murmuring, "You'd better not let me do whatever the hell I want if you're not okay with it, KK. I'll never forgive you if you turn me into GZ."

Karkat shut him up with a brief press of lips. "Never."

The psionic continued to watch him for a moment. Then, when Karkat's bulge gave a tiny flutter inside of him, he seemed to get the message. His bulge dipped back down to its previous position and brushed around the lips of his nook with great care.

That…was hard to deal with for a moment. His bulge stilled inside of his matesprit as he paused to take in the feeling, to suck in a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself down.  _Horns,_ Karkat reminded himself, reaching up and stroking his fingertips lightly along Sollux's head.  _Four of them. Two large two small. Not Gamzee. Sollux._

Sollux hummed. Slid just the tip of his bulge along the entrance to Karkat's nook. Teased inside with barely half an inch.

He tensed, then forced himself to relax.  _You're on top. If you don't like it, you can throw him off._

The psionic pushed in just a little further. He didn't ask for reassurances this time. He just slid in half an inch deeper and waited, peering up at Karkat cautiously, then moved in even further. Testing his limits.

Karkat dug his teeth into his lower lip and waited. From this angle Sollux couldn't fit all of his bulge inside, could only get maybe half of it up where he wanted it to go, and in no time at all he'd bottomed out.

Sollux watched his face carefully. "How is it?"

"Uh…" Karkat shifted his hips a little, feeling out the intrusion. His own bulge twisted subconsciously, making Sollux choke out a little gasp and jerk his hips, and Karkat let out a little hiss as the motion pushed Sollux's bulge just a little deeper. It wasn't bad, he realized. It didn't feel bad. And from this angle, perched atop Sollux, fingers tracing along his horns, most of his earlier panic was nowhere to be found. All that was left was a little flicker of trepidation that Sollux was quickly soothing away with light kisses and gentle brushes of fingertips to flesh. "It's okay," he decided upon finally. "Keep going."

Sollux nodded up at him. Then he moved just barely, letting his bulge coil the smallest amount to get him used to the sensation. It searched along his walls and stretched back as far as it could go, and—

_There._ Karkat thrashed just slightly inside Sollux as the psionic's bulge slid over that same spot, long and undulating, and something buzzing and pleasant began to build up in his abdomen. For just a moment there was fear, before all such emotions were swept away by the simple act of reaching up and grabbing onto Sollux's larger set of horns.

"KK," Sollux murmured, " _move_."

He jolted into action. He'd been so stunned by the feeling of being penetrated that he'd almost forgotten that he was supposed to be pleasuring Sollux, too. He dragged his bulge along the spot Sollux loved and reveled in the answering moan, then choked out an embarrassingly loud sound as Sollux jerked his hips slightly and  _lashed._

_So much different. It's so much different._ Karkat's mouth fell open in a soundless wail as Sollux found his breaking point and fucking  _tortured_ it, laving against the bundle of nerves over and over with control that was absolutely fucking  _shocking_  given their current position. The psionic was pushing him hard and fast towards oblivion, Karkat struggling to keep up and show Sollux the same attention.

"I've got you," Sollux gasped when Karkat started whimpering, this time from the maddening buildup of pleasure rather than fear. "Shit, Karkat, I've got you, you're okay." Then he spiraled his bulge in an  _acrobatic_ fucking maneuver, and Karkat's think pan whited out momentarily. When he came to he was lashing and writhing and rolling inside Sollux without having consciously decided to do so, pleasure tightening in his core and wriggling as if in an attempt to escape, and based on the sudden purring moan he received from Sollux he guessed that he wasn't far behind.

Karkat choked out a strangled noise. "Close," he managed, "oh, fuck, so close…"

Sollux growled low and dark and redoubled his efforts. It was good,  _too_  good,  _how_  was he so good at this, and Karkat practically sobbed at the intensity of it all as his lower body tightened and released rhythmically, as his nook clamped around Sollux's bulge for just a heartbeat before loosening and repeating the process, as endless warmth seized around his own bulge and stoked the fire inside him higher and higher towards its inevitable end.

Then Sollux surged forward and pressed the side of his bulge against his breaking point, held it there without mercy, and Karkat came undone with a gasping, ragged moan. He could feel it  _all,_ feel the pulsing waves of pleasure blossoming from his nook and travelling up to his bulge, feel the way his think pan shorted out with shocked gratification, feel the way his candy red genetic material dripped from his nook and from Sollux's insides just shy of his gene bladder, feel the way his matesprit gasped and choked and jolted as the clenching of his nook sent him over the edge right along with him to pump mustard-yellow geneslime all over his lower body.

_He didn't use my gene bladder,_ Karkat realized, at the same moment Sollux was probably realizing the same. But the realization was swiftly swept away by a wave of shuddering bliss, and Karkat could do nothing but flop down on his matesprit with a spent puff of breath. He was exhausted.

"Shit," Sollux murmured sleepily, rolling Karkat to the side so they were both stretched out in a rather disgusting puddle of genetic material. "Forgot how messy this was gonna be if we decided not do things the normal way." The normal way being just using each other's gene bladders, at which point the material could be safely deposited into a bucket.

Karkat buried his face in his matesprit's chest. There were so many things he wanted to say, so many emotions flooding his think pan, but there was no way he could voice all of them when he was about a half a second away from just passing out in the orangey genetic material created by the fusion of yellow and red. "Thanks," he settled on, voice soft and rasping. "For not…you know. Using it."

Sollux stared at him like he'd lost his pan. "It was never a question of whether or not I'd fill your gene bladder, idiot, not after what happened last time. Actually filling buckets is something we'll have to work up to."

His eyes pricked with tears. He pitied Sollux  _so much._

"Oh, no…" Sollux hooked an arm around him and pulled him close, only wincing a little at the feeling of cooling genetic material sinking into his skin. "Stop crying, you pitiful wreck."

Karkat sniffed once, twice, trying to stop the tears beginning to drip down his face. He'd been getting his compulsive crying fits under control as of late, but how was he supposed to keep his eyes dry when his matesprit was  _so goddamn caring?_

"Shit," Sollux sighed. "Here, just…" He reached out and grabbed Karkat's hands, directing them to his horns.

He sniffed again. "What are you doing?"

"You kept grabbing my horns in the middle of it," he explained with a light blush. "It's an anchor point for you, right? To remind you that I'm not him."

Karkat brushed his fingertips over the candy-corn protrusions, the pit of warmth in his stomach expanding as he heard Sollux's answering sigh, felt the way he went just a little bit more jelly-like beside him. "Yeah," he managed. "Yeah, you're right." He gripped harder. "Do you mind if…?"

"No, no," the psionic sighed. "Do it whenever you like, just…not in public?"

"Of course not!" Karkat yelped, alarmed. Did his matesprit think he was that much of a sexual deviant, wanting to fondle him right in the middle of the main lab?

Sollux chuckled. "Calm down, KK, it was just a joke." He rolled to the side and swung his legs over the edge of the ruined sleep slat, resting his feet on the ground, and peered over his shoulder at his matesprit. "Take a shower with me?"

"But I'm tired," Karkat complained.

"But you  _smell,"_ was the retort. "We both do, and we're both  _covered_ in genetic material." He nudged at him with a tendril of psionic energy. "Come on."

"No."

"KK, come  _on."_

"But Sollux…" he whined. "I just got over some seriously deep-rooted trauma; let me sleep for a bit!"

"Nope, not happening."

"But—!"

"Nope!" Blue and red shrieked from the psionic's fingertips and wreathed around Karkat in swirling coils of energy.

"Hey!" Karkat yelped, struggling, as his matesprit lifted him effortlessly and floated him towards the ablution block. "Sollux, you ass!"

"Shut up and cooperate, KK." Sollux pushed open the door to the ablution block and dropped him into the trap with a gentle thunk. "That is, unless you think you're good to leave and go back to your own block."

"This  _is_  my block, fuckass!"

Sollux smirked. "Kick me out, then."

"I…" Karkat blushed furiously, then squeaked as water suddenly came crashing down atop his head.

"That's what I thought," Sollux purred, stepping into the trap and tugging the curtain closed. "Just relax now, KK. I'm going to take care of you for as long as it takes."

 

* * *

 

When Karkat walked into the common area the next day, still buzzing with contentment as a result of the night before, he was greeted by a very smug Rose and a blushing Kanaya and a cackling Terezi.

"What?" Karkat asked suspiciously, "what is it?" But he didn't need them to tell him, because he looked to one side and he  _saw._

He saw the giant goddamn illustration on the wall, a true testament to Nepeta's old shipping wall, of himself and Sollux locked in a  _very fucking intimate_ position, complete with what had to be a human's best estimation of troll genitalia without ever actually seeing the real thing.

"Now Karkat," Rose giggled as he started to vibrate with fury, "you must remember that—"

He didn't listen, snarling and turning on heel and tearing out of the room with the intent to kill.

_"Strider!"_

He couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard something like a laugh from some far off hallway. And as he ran, chasing that laugh with his claws at the ready and his fangs bared, he didn't think about Gamzee for a moment.

Everything was okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Not the most original thing in the world obviously, but it was fun! Hopefully you enjoyed, and don't hesitate to shoot me a comment, kudos, whatever!


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